Longlisted for the OSP Poetry Competition
This ancient olive tree cut meagre,
Made little,
Kept lower than it can climb.
Its goodly bough is whittled,
Now a withered portion,
All its branches
Severed,
Denied.
This flowering almond reduced,
To fit a forced confine -
That inhibits the cast
Shade - so that wood-housed
Spirits of the dead, have no home to
Hide.
This sheltering pine, pruned,
Removed, displaced,
Seized from canopy to root,
Targeted where weaker wood is
Susceptible to many endless shoots.
This poor acacia stump;
Subdual won’t make it rise.
Besides its beckoning bark,
Sit crypts of fruit that
Drift, decaying,
Fuel for greedy flies.
This noble elder diminished,
Coppiced, to make a neat stool
Where surgeon can sit and review
His empty horn of plenty,
His worn-down cutting tool.
These woodsmen see sacred visions -
A forest fuming, a bush aflame,
But in place of fire,
Is a Bank of poppies, cut to scissions, tame.
They’re gravely fooled -
Professing petals blazing-red,
Where heads just burst as crimson sheets;
It’s mad to be lost in the
Altering,
Tree-quelling
Lust for orchards of opulent
Opiate feasts.
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