Karen Bookguilder is intended to be a collection of poems 60 poems expressly for the Book Guild
by Mike Burr - the themes being dictated by or about its published artisans .
Clove and cure
there is a cure
"there is a cure within me" she felt
but she was wrong
there was no cure
only a clearing in her favourite place
in the bluebell wood
and i scattered her ashes
and her distant church bells
in that March day clearing
bright sun alight laughing
mong the protected bellwoods
later daisies grew upon that very spot
their ochre tanned faces flounced their albino locks
and laughed into the spectre of the woods
and its rare blue companions
so daisy forms a chain
and in merely a midges years
her million babies are rising
she marches on her with little yellow soldierettes
leaping among the trees
her plague jeer at trowlers
would be saviours to her bluebell antithesis
"ladies trash that woods" she calls
ladette and rampant
cackling grossly as she goes
i feel absurd that i should feel
upsetter of nature
that i should spray her all
with weed killer and nitrates of eternal night
but no
only the rarer blue things are denied of life
if indeed a plant as daft as bluey
can be equated to a life
i first met her at a party
conker bonka pejonka
"d'you wanna lift home" she asked
words innocent enough among the party debris
i didn't think of her as my type
box socks ticktock
but by slow, inveigling slough, there she was
and my bedroom was our room
and my house was our house
which became her house
neat feet cleansheet
because party by succeeding party
she lobbed out all my things - not my most favourite things
but mostly all my things
spunkskunk junk dump
and then put girlie things in there instead
strange, soft furry things
pinky slinky frothzinky
and things in vases
like bluebells
thank fuck she's clove from life
and the pain is gone
her joy emanating from the daisies of the woodland