Pain Hill Moor

High in heavy rain clouds edged with chrome

Spins a carousel of rooks jacks and carrion crows

Too bickeringly quarrelsome to allow their silence to condone

The robin’s melancholic evening air

Over the years the wind has blown

These beech crowns to form a shallow dome

To the top of this natural cathedral has flown

A flock of laughing Fieldfare

Stiff-masted moorland grasses sing long low

Moaning laments when the sharp wind bluster-blows

Such long whines and long wails as if the wind longs to atone

For its desire to scour the moor bare

Ragged upland sheep, all skin and bone

Shelter in the lee of a wall of grey stone

Sadly surveying their Pain Hill Moor home

 In silence, with disconsolate stares

NoveltyHead

Once is an experience

Twice is a comparison

Three times is a bore

Every Single Super-Nova

Every single super-nova, flaring point of light

Radiates a shining corona, much to Alyse’s delight

That last glass must have really thrown her

For she is staring at the bright

Candle flame’s pure golden aura

That delicately denies the night

In It For The Money

Cutting a dash, making a splash

Inspiring as any enemies as admirers

Cream of the crop, rising to the top

Reprising Machiavelli’s designs for high-fliers

Wine bars, fine cigars

In cahoots with cohorts, conniving with cunning

Fast cars, first class

The leader of the pack, not just in the running

In tip-top condition, with top-spot ambition

Whatever it requires to deliver desires

Top-dog gets the top-job

King of all corporate thieves cheats and liars

 

Executioner-in-Absentia

If asked, I’d reply that I always have a ninety-nine percent chance of maintaining my innocence…

I can live with that, especially as I perform my duty anonymously.

And for a million U’s a year? When everyone else is cold and hungry on way less than fifty thousand?

Literally money for nothing! Well, almost always literally…

All I have to do is syringe one drop of a randomly chosen bottle’s contents into a small glass that’s made brimming by the addition of all one hundred minims of ‘Elixir’.

Don’t worry yourself about what Elixir is exactly… just accept that it’s essentially a scentless translucent liquid… and be reassured, the ‘Recipient’ always chooses to drink it… well, once the ‘Alternative’ is explained to them, anyway. Consequently, as Our Sacred Training stresses, we of The Virtuous Panel of The One Hundred, retain exemplary records in the judgement of the Ultimate Arbiter…

I never see who drinks it… or ever know why. It could be a murderous paedophile… in which case, if asked, I’d reply that I hope my drop was loaded… but it could be a frightened old woman, informed that she must cease immediately to be a burden on The State… in which case… if asked, I’d reply that I hope I’m in the ninety-nine…

But whomsoever sips or is intravenously dripped the Elixir… they are quickly ‘Cancelled’. And my virtue remains intact.

So, if asked I’d repeat that I have a ninety-nine percent chance of maintaining my innocence…

But to be honest… I couldn’t really care less.

∞Ω∞