Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, Storms. The dog sleeps with me At the end of my bed I snore And so does he We cancel each other out Sue sleeps undisturbed in her bedchamber Red and sunlit View over the mountain Toff and I walk the coal tip We admire unintended artworks formed by dumped builders rubble Brick and roof tile cairns Like graves of ancients We stroll around the old cemetery at the top of the hill Graves subsumed by brambles and ash trees We stop and watch the piglets in the field I find the grave of a former neighbour Laid to rest last year She visited parts of this world I will never see Now her remains lie here In this damp plot Already becoming entangled in brambles We are soon forgotten Ebola continues to kill the poor I go out and rake up leaves The clouds move fast Sunlight hits the hills in the distance ------------------------- 29 years together We strolled around through Herefordshire mists The gentle rolling...

Dear Monty, Grayson Perry as quoted in the Guardian magazine yesterday said that; 'Britain has the toad of irony sitting on it ' Making things that represent actual places or people are no longer valid in this 'contemporary' world. But October clears the air. Leaves crisply fall The light thins to a watery silver-gilt Blue eyes like crystal shine in it I must live on the other side of the valley The consuming passion consumed Leaving entrails in the wood The chainsaw rasps of dirt bikes And the whiff of petrol fumes Hang in the thin air Reds russets golds and yellows Trees reveal their shape Branches are lopped to reveal views The mountain turns gold I heed the rules The guide was consumed by them Before devouring my disobedience He swallows it down whole And creates a rest deeper than the roots of this mountain Deeper than any coal black hell ----------------------------- Here I sit with Ted Hughes and Shelley And the ...