Worm’s Eye View

 
I love to wriggle through loam, my home;

I enjoy stretching through the soil, my toil.

I am not a stick in the mud, m’lud!

I am Worm – earthy, honest, tiller of land.

My band work tirelessly, day and night –

Make roots grow deep, shoots sprout towards the light.

 

Woodworm, wormhole, bookworm, earworm, wormwood.

 

This worm is for turning

over new leaves.

For turning the sod over and over

Burrowing,

Fertilising,

Nourishing.

All that was solid, I break down.

 

Blackbird hears worm’s earthy song

Dances to the beat, claws stamp along.

Vibrations travel through the soil

Earthworm, excited, starts to uncoil.

Squirms through the black earth

Surfaces – to an outstretched beak.

 

Worming, wormery, blindworm, worm food, meal worm, earthworm.

 

Protesting – pulled from the ground.

Blackbird puts an end to his wormy sound.

Common Ground

Common Ground

I calculate the angle of attack,
Alter my approach. Ailerons
Raised; I come into land.
I can spot the tiniest movement
From eighty feet –
Swoop, catch, consume.

It’s all in the preparation,
A pilot’s checklist.
I wear the colour of black,
Creep under their radar.
Addressing worms below
With a mighty V sign.
And you call me bird-brained!

This particular stealth bomber
Sits proudly in the apple tree,
Head tilted, eye fixed
On a single blade of grass.
Assesses the moment to pounce,
The time to stoop.
Readies himself.

Branch resonates.
Sprung into the void,
To devour and feast
On the succulent, fat worm below.

“Don’t eat me!”

Lingua franca
Bridges the elements.
Spans the gulf
Between the foes.

Stunned, the bird
Stalls, falls
A whirl of confusion,
A mass of ruffled feathers.
Just in time, he pulls up,
Regains his composure.

“What?”

“Don’t eat me”.

“For I am a digger, a nourisher,
A toiler and tiller,
A compost-heap of delight.
Without me, you would never
Taste berries, so red and ripe
Or perch on your tree
So lofty and high.
We are legion.
On the work of billions
Your life depends”.

Blackbird eyes his adversary
In a new light.
Pearlescent, deep-jet stare.
“Fat, juicy worm,
My children are hungry.
They cry for food.
Kill or be killed.”

“The same winds which drove you here
Powered your flight,
The same jetstream, the same clouds
The same rain, the same instinct
Causes me to surface for air
When pitter-patter drums the ground.
The same urge to procreate,
To fend for our brothers and sisters
Beats in my heart as it does yours.
We stand on common ground.”

“I am a maker, a delver and digger
Gardener of tender shoots, green leaves.”

Blackbird bends ever closer,
To hear this strange speech.

“To eat me would . . .”

Beak stabs, snaps.
Worm falls silent.

___________________________________________________________________________

You can help support the Socialist Party by buying a short book of my poems, ‘Little Red Poetry’:

Three poems on blackbirds and worms

The early bird catches the worm
 
Twirling, writhing, twisting,
Avoiding the deadly, stabbing
Beak.

Searching, seeking, fleeing,
Burrowing into fertile,
Nourishing, revitalising
Soil.

Cowering, sheltering, prodding, squirming,
Snapping, closing, struggling, ending.
The worm, turning
In the death embrace of the
Claw.

Imprisoned in the gaping maw,
The black cloak of death
Enfolds, flies up.
Gives to its offspring,
Life.

Shelter

Safe inside our burrows
Under soil, close and narrow
We shelter silently, safe and warm.

When raindrops drum,
Our wormy instincts thrum
And we surge up through the ground
In response to the sound.

Its only natural for a worm,
Sharp eyes see us squirm.
The black harbinger of doom
Unfurls its wings and zoom!

Talons tear through our clods,
Beak stabs and prods.
No safety anymore.
Exposed, naked on the floor.

The meat-seeking missile strikes.
Remorseless predator,
Devourer of worms.

Worms of the World Unite

Brother and Sister Worms:
We have had enough
Of being easy prey.
Let’s refuse to burrow,
Stop ploughing the furrow
And let it lie fallow,
Dry and barren as bone.
Let the blackbirds break their beaks
On our resolve, hard as stone.