Months: Lyrics: July

The poems for March, April, May and June in this series were posted on 14 March, 13 April, 9 May and 15 June 2015.
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   Erect in the sward
Like Wells’s war-world Tripods,    
Feasting on oil-hot sun,
Settlers on lank legs,
   Ragwort – staggerwort –
   Whiffs like dung.                            

Yellow as plates of yolk             

   Its flowers, its leaves
   Like curly kale;
And all July the wold
It roves – its burnt-gold troves          
   A swagman’s trawl.       

Each flower’s a thirteen petal

Womb coddling swags
   Of yolky sacs;
   But like jakes-dregs             
It shakes scour-gut aches  
   Through uncareful cattle.    

Flowering done, what’s left
Is scranched bran in a cuff       
Of rusty petals; a swart     
   Stink in a puff –
Tart – of mare’s fart
In the noon heat adrift.       

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© July 2014