Poetry Hallway - Croyland Otter Loses His Mind Over the Onset of Winter

Come in. Be mindful to step OVER the envelopes piled on the mat. Don't walk through them, or we'll want to know the reason why. We'll attend them in due course; the majority will be placed in the nearest postbox, marked 'RETURN TO SENDER', for Croyland Otter does like to lick stamps.

Oh, how we tried to dissuade Otter from submitting further material to Poetry Hallway. We care about your literary pleasure, really we do. But since the poetry-scape is a gradient, with jewel-encrusted gold stuff at one end, and terrible arse-scrapings at the other, we felt that we had a duty to waft the latter under your nose, that you may experience balance in all its trueness. (We try damned hard to offer better-quality poetic musings, but they are hard to come by.)

That doesn't mean we're happy about it; nor does it mean that you have to be, either. Regardless, this latest wordy ejaculation from Croyland demonstrates his fragile mental state, and no one is more interesting and worthy of scrutiny than a damaged artist. Long may he remain critically messed up!

One point of interest is his brief mention of former Conservative MP for Northeast Cambridgeshire, Malcolm Moss. We thought we might get something politically charged, which would have demonstrated an interest shift for Otter. We didn't.

Winter Rapes My Precious Bog

Flatly peat land, turning white,

Halting whiffs of muck-spread shite;

Turnips piled, obscuring light,

My Fenland playground, hid by night.

Crystal blanket pulled across,

Choking brown beneath the frost;

Bludgeons like a Malcolm Moss,

Lecturing in the ways of loss.

Passing pubs of ill repute,

Where Tony Martin hid from dues;

Snow is piled upon their rooves,

Hiding those forensic clues.

But I care more for silty sludge,

Than for a farmer with a grudge;

I cannot help but love so much,

That slippy, silty, Fenland sludge.

The British Pigeon Menace

Supersized Columba

The US d'A is well-known for doing everything slightly bigger, if not always better. And when they can't do it better, they just do it even more biggerer. That's true for fast food portions, cars, motorways, presidential candidates, and religious lunacy.

But somehow, pigeons slipped through the net. On more than one occasion I've heard American visitors to the temporarily-United Kingdom exclaim superlatives at the size of our resident pigeons, and run for the cover of picturesque Post Offices and red phone boxes.

And they are right to be fearful, for if a British pigeon doesn't catch you, you'll probably catch something from a British pigeon. Here is Beware! The Zine's handy visual guide to the North American and British pigeons:

Microcolumba americanus (left) and Columba philocanis (right). M. acericanus is identifiable by its small size and the excellent condition of its teeth. C. philocanis is noticeably larger, rarely possesses a full set of toes, and lines its nests with the pelts of domestic dogs - which it eats.

Poetry Hallway - Harvest Festival

If there's one thing that characterises rural England in Autumn, it's the timeless sight of sweaty, burly locals stalking the fields, scything away at anything and everything that moves. The remains are occasionally interred in unmarked graves, but more likely cooked up into tasty dishes to be served up during the traditional harvest celebrations. With this in mind, Beware! tasked its resident poets to whittle down some suitable verses on the subject of autumn. These are the pitiful responses we received.

Wiccan harvest queen. (Andy Brain)

Kerbside Aspiration by Andy Brain

Islington harvest?
Premature mortality.
Every breath you take.

They get everywhere.
Soot soup ferments in the lungs.
Great work, this. Medals?

Cold now on a slab.
Malignant neoplasm.
Airway sabotage.

Diesel: Death's plan B.
"Make something better" ad spot -
Too good to be true.

Particulate trap.
Pulmonary pinpricking.
Pomp. Promises. Phlegm.

Culpable smooth suits.
Statistics swallowed, suppressed.
Countless needless deaths.

Years that should have been;
Lifetimes just miles on the clock.
Empty still the dock.


One in October by Archibald Oulipo

1

Soft mist and propagation;

Other God-given goods too.

He created the earth, yet

he will destroy the wine and

lotus-thatched women's teams;

Apple retorts, doubtless mossed

Summer fruits, ornamental

Oyster fat and forecast oil.

Organization of tools; 

Other promises installed.

Flowers for Maya; the day 

may not be able to stop

a summer full and hanging.

2

Sometimes, this feeling is right for you?

Sometimes, look elsewhere, other time-zones.

Results obtained are of negligence

to the hair-soft spiritual life;

Sierra ship stats, sure, or have a nap.

Groom-calm the prices your way; they say

Interest no more holds the whole country;

Always clean, always - burn the excess,

particularly the upsetting;

Patients' destination has cedar: 

A missed call will remain ever missed.

3

It started in the spring? In fact, what? 

Because music - narrow corridor,
Wide orange vista of light - marries

for him though, dead flowers, rats, horseflies,

The game went slightly pink, ragged, dry.

Infected mosquitoes' pain and song -

Willow Stream, live and dead, air and light,

New Year installation already?

The Hajj makes even Frasier dance;

Now craft regret with red breast pulsing;

Twitter and soft collected volumes.

Just Rewards for Hard Workers by Limpit Smike

Laying back or sprawling forward,
Upon my precious country sword,
The hard, bold land I've seen betimes,
On photos whilst in richer climes.
Those less fortunate than myself,
Those without the gifts of verse.
They surely have it so much worse.
They scratch a living from the land.
Britons, can we not understand?

What of the farmer, does he care?
Of his riches does he share?
No. No. No.
Daft and wrong, daft and wrong.
Force those workers to sell their bodies?
Sell them like whores for mere pennies?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Proud and strong, proud and strong.

If I could employ them all I would.
I would shelter them inside my hood.
I would scrub their nails to cleanse from dirt.
I would mop their brows to ease their hurt.

Own the land, own the man.
Cherish the land, cherish the man.

It is my duty to share in my good fortune,
So many forthright thoughts I must importune,
Must press and push to enter into their minds,
And make sure nothing bad is left in the behinds.

How to Do a Harvest by Bobby Robert

Sneak into the farmer's field,

Drop your drawers and drop your yield,

Wait til the crime is revealed,

Send a selfie shitty smirk.

Station Of Critical Review By Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: The Fenland Soil Association Soil Grade Card

Given that this here estate on which the Hiscox-Wormegay family has lived, since times of ancient, is built upon fen muds, it makes sense of plenty to review, for your intellectual pleasure, the Fenland Soil Association Soil Grader. This item of equipment was devised by the invading Norman army, the engineers of which being so prodigiously unable to cope with more than type of soil that they had to produce a useful guide. Without this guide, it is entirely possible that Hereward the Wake might have been able to maintain his stranglehold on the fens and made mighty massacre of the French interlopers. That would have been good.

The Fenland Soil Association Soil Grader card.  A local person doesn't need this. They can taste the difference.
(Graphic by Gareth Monger)

The trained fen eye will immediately make mental note of fact that only two types of soil are on display upon this Old French document. As Canadians are about snow, we are about mud. Summer a single mud does not make. There are a hundred muds. Clay mud, sand mud, wet mud, wetter mud, watery mud, water with mud in.

I once saw a horse drown in mud, for which we erected the type 'horsey mud'. Horsey mud is hard to plough as the conditions are usually sufficient to produce plough-equipmenty mud.

The Fens: an artist's impression.
(Illustration by Gareth Monger)

And so it falls upon me to give reviewer grade to this device of soil grade. If this grader was of fen mind enough to include five hundred soils, I might consider more than one star. But it is failing in the highest possible magnitude. Therefore, no stars. No stars a night sky does not make. Good night.