Dark Nettles Take Heed

Dark Nettles Take Heed

My days are scattered like a dandelion clock,
dark nettles take heed in the evening.
There is a conspiracy amongst humans
that is unshared by weeds,
preparing them to stinging vengeance
not as warning but as of cold malice defiant

Dark nettles take heed after the sun has set.
My days are scattered like a dandelion clock
but I saw a white thing fall after the dusk had fallen,
bouncing like a ball off the blackness of the sky
offering an ominous and malevolent aspiration.

On the bog a night bird frets
in the bleak disputed turbaries,
and the judder of a snipe
scratches claws across the midnight blackboard
as the wish is taken up and copied.
Like a leaking clarinet the night bird weeps its last riff and fades.
But the light too has now gone out.
Dark nettles take heed.
And my days are scattered and the clock is broken.

© Mike Absalom