Radovan’s bees

That summer, the sun shot relentless level beams at fields 
so heavy with poppies they slept standing: plums, hung
closer to the ground than anyone could remember, fell 
with a dull implosion into weed-strangled ditches and corn
 
cracked its kernels like pistol shots. Above it all, the bees danced 
in the dazzling air, testing the fragrance of mountain, lake and forest, 
gathering pollen from as far afield as Prijedor and Goražde.
Having been around for 35 million years, they knew everything: 
even why their honey sometimes tasted of blood – children’s 
was sweeter than parent’s and grandparent’s.

In the city, a swarm descended on a tree above the Luda Cuca 
and the local people, worried about being attacked, bought insecticide 
and came to the place, but Radovan said:  “Don’t kill the bees - 
bees are blessed, living beings and deserve to be saved.” 

© Jenny Lewis, unpublished,  July 2008



Bears nil

People who live in foggy Petropavlovsk- Kamchatky
should know that bears are now encroaching on towns
rummaging in bins and scoffing factory food garbage.

The bears would rather stay at home 
roaming the geysers and snow-covered calderas
of the remote volcanic peninsula they’ve always shared 
with rare Steller’s sea eagles and puffins.

nine time zones away in Moscow
the daily papers carry stories about them
showing pictures of their snarling snouts 
and yellowing tusk-like canines.

They attacked two guards at a geology station
because they were starving - their food supply was gone
poachers have emptied the rivers by netting fish
so no more salmon for the bears to eat:

now, suddenly, they’re the Al Capones of the animal world -
sling them a hat and a revolver and each one turns into the Godfather, 
stumbling out of ice-bound thickets with wadded cheeks,
mumbling incomprehensible death threats.

Meanwhile, in the wild far eastern region of Kamchatka
puffins and sea eagles stare out across the wilderness
wondering why it’s so quiet: and where all the bears have gone.

© Jenny Lewis, unpublished,  July 2008



A druid sends a postcard home
With apologies to Craig Raine

I have two homes and a chill box bought 
from Marks and Spencer; the chill box 
is to keep Prosecco cold; Prosecco 
is a wine from Italy; Italy is
a romantic place where 
it is always sunny; 
yes it’s the same 
as your sun.

I have a trophy wife; a trophy is a cup
with handles you get for winning
a competition; no, she doesn’t 
have handles; we have several
holidays each year; last time
we went to Barbados for 
Christmas; I missed 
the mistletoe.

I drive a red 4X4 and a silver BMW; BMW
is a make of car from Germany; Germany 
is where the Anglo-Saxons came from; 
Anglo-Saxons are due to conquer you 
soon; 4X4’s are used by the rich 
to clog up roads;  roads were 
invented by Romans, also 
due to conquer you.

I wear the finest  shirts by Gieves and Hawkes; 
they are a firm of tailors in the City; the City 
is London where money is made; it is on 
the Thames, pronounced ‘Temms’ 
which is what you first called it; 
it is now so polluted the fish 
are dead; sorry, I know 
you put them there.

Do you still have an allergy to badger fat? 
Have you finally repaired the mead hall? 
Does your cave still flood in March? 
Do you still eat mainly saxifrage 
and seaweed? Do they still 
bring you out in red spots? 
Save me some pignuts. 
I might be back.

© Jenny Lewis, unpublished, September,  2008



Guinivere

I polished it every morning after the jousting, tenderly,
with beeswax smelling of honey and lavender
reflecting on those days when I ran barefoot 
through the meadow over a sea of grass and clover:

in the sky above, voluminous high clouds like ships
that I could jump on and travel to the four corners
of the world where white-gowned angels blew
their trumpets and shouted ‘Arise! Arise!’ while

here below, whole banquets of roast peacock stuffed 
with goose, duck, chicken, pheasant, grouse, 
guinea fowl, pigeon, ptarmigan, blackbird, swallow, 
house martin, swift, robin, chaffinch and wren went cold 

while we sat and stared, waiting for a miracle. To pass
time I thought about my lover, the way he removed
his armour piece by piece, always in the same sequence:
gloves, surcoat, hauberk, gambeson and lastly

helmet, revealing the face I loved braided with scars
but still astonishing as the May morning I first saw it:
better by far than his who sent the green knight’s
head rolling among gnawed bones of hunting dogs

I wondered then, why I wasn’t chosen: I always tried
to get things in the right order – swift, robin, chaffinch
no…swift, chaffinch, wren, robin…gloves, surcoat
or maybe, gloves, hauberk…I lost my gems…my looks

night and morning, I polished the table but they wouldn’t 
let me into the secret, only the purest, they said, could see it. 
Now I wash and wash myself, face, hands, feet and always last
the place near my heart where I feel my soul burn.

© Jenny Lewis, unpublished,  July 2008

The following poems are from Mesopotamia about the eponymous World War I campaign, a work in progress by Jenny Lewis.

Mirage

The land and sky trick us with mirages
of enemy troops becoming trestle tables which float
over the ground before turning into camels.

We can’t tell how many or how close they are – 
we dive for cover, frightened by bushes:
sunset behind a mound is the flare of shrapnel

over shepherds, watching their flocks
under the first stars.



Qurna

You think of deserts and date palms but this land
floods in winter, temperatures below freezing and sleet
blowing in hard curtains – worse than Wales!

Getting to Qurna was slow going: water, glutinous mud, 
everything sank – guns, supplies, mules; the injured sloshed
along on old AT carts, in agony for lack of morphine. 

On Thursday we built a bridge of boats to reach 
the so-called Garden of Eden – a place of reed hovels, 
lanes littered with rubbish and a keeling 

Tree of Knowledge growing through a shell-pocked roof.
No wonder Adam and Eve left.