Killing in the Name Of

I faced off with a twelve kilo sack of half-rotten turnips the other day.
You bet your bottom I won.
I'm hungry, and I feel like having some red meat.
Grr.

Seamus Heaney

I love him.
Lots.
And I really, really want to read his Beowulf, but I can't seem to find the time.
And Neil Gaiman has done his best to ruin the legend.
The tosser.
But here, have some Seamus.

Death of a Naturalist

All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampots full of the jellied
Specks to range on the window-sills at home,
On shalves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hadges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

Clipping

You know weird things make me cry.
This did.

Button!

Here's a little WIP from a miniature I'm doing. It's like...three by four inches or something ridiculous like that.

the skin is peeling
off my hands
in paper-fine layers.

The Battle You Left

Mood: Drowsy Morning
Listening To: 'The Siren's Song' Oh, Sleeper
Reading: venomous alibis
Eating: wish it were toast and marmalade
Drinking: peppermint tea
Today is going to be a particularly bloody-minded day. It's Wednesday, but I do get to relax marginally. Tomorrow I won't have time to get prepped for the weekend, so today, I'll be doing all that lovely stuff.
This song is sodding great, by the bye. You need to listen to it. 'Soft, wet skin' is some of the better lyrical consonance and alliteration I've heard in a while. It also conjures images halfway between a centrefold Petra Nemcova and a dementor.
Delish.

Remember the clouds that hid the trees?
That kissed my emptied eyes?
Forgetting colour, the landscape ends
Beneath the limitless skies.