"Monumental" by Mark Byers

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April junkets gorge on slick egg-tempera,
yolk-yellow flowerheads, recombinant nectar
swaying cream stamens.
Fritillaries shadow around marigold and spurrey,
broadcast archaeophytes in gilt eddings
to splurge later on Jupiter’s beard.
Lichens annexing new territory with encrusted
verdigris apparel his thickening tongue
with a sheaf of grey-green scales.

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Frost burns still under the frolic March hare,
recedes to the Walk’s espaliered fronds;
open circuitry underfoot, some root flex
threading scrofulous drystone.
Outpaced the firs to the open field’s
flensed ramparts sloping to the lookout;
buzzards arc in a double helix
where two waters meet and slick stones
assemble proof against time, the war-
monger, face greased with woad—

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… fridge ziggurats, green-frescoed plasterboard, uPVC
pilasters upraised as durable monoliths; rubble and
scrap-metal a proof against rain,
proof against history, emptying time,
long barrows of coarse sand concealing bones; steel femurs
jangling un-cauterized nerves,
skeletal greenhouses; monuments topped
with hieratic gulls; yards enclosed by razor wire,
cardboard kurgans catching the light.
Causeways to the business park, flyover triliths
sheltering crypts under swags of cloud;
Bridgestone tumuli interring the recent dead,
souterrains draining engine-oil, corbelled
fougou stoppered with bramble; silvered wrappers
caught in the birch branches’ dragnet;
as measured stars wheel around a jerry-rigged obelisk,
Maersk containers askew; weary pilgrims
coursing to the pop-up mastabah…

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A vixen snuffles
under the wire,
noses out a lurid
drift of wild garlic
tin cans & silver
foil in the grass
& a thumb-thick
bufftail scans
nettle, dames
wort & vetch
leaves of blank
polyurethane