Our large-headed soldiers
Are odd ungainly creatures
Whose heads can stop-up doors
Whose jaws can split the husks of grain,
Though for the most part they are idle, since
They only need to come to life
And run around and snap their sickled jaws
At foreign creatures who come too near
Or sometimes cast a listless eye upon a line
Of workers, until it's time to march again; when
Our Queen sees need of a greener scene
Living off the land will mean living on the hoof;
If a horse be tethered we shall pick it clean
And its bones will rest where we have been
______
gw2010
Are odd ungainly creatures
Whose heads can stop-up doors
Whose jaws can split the husks of grain,
Though for the most part they are idle, since
They only need to come to life
And run around and snap their sickled jaws
At foreign creatures who come too near
Or sometimes cast a listless eye upon a line
Of workers, until it's time to march again; when
Our Queen sees need of a greener scene
Living off the land will mean living on the hoof;
If a horse be tethered we shall pick it clean
And its bones will rest where we have been
______
gw2010
10 comments:
Slightly unsettling in conjunction with the photo - as if people were imitating ants in their societies...
Susan, an interesting observation, and as so often from you, it comes straight to the point of the poem. There's a drift ... an antlike mentality is growing ... each ant to his task!
Re the image, I meant to add - why should haiga (haiku-photo) compilers have it all their own way- power to the sonnet writers!
All a bit creepy Gwilym - workers of the world unite and all that.
Joan thanks you for your kind words - she was thrilled to receive your criticism. If you send me your address then I will send you a copy of Joan's book.
Thanks Pat. I've sent you an e-mail.
enjoyed particularly those last two lines.
I occasionally scare my kids with close-up pictures of ants from the Wilson book.
Hi CC's kids! Ants make great pets but, as boringly usual, a word of caution: Do not, repeat do not, give ants too much food (D W Morley). e.g. a colony of 5,000 Jet Black Ants only needs about 2 large teaspoonfuls of honey each week ... a colony of Common Red Ants only needs about a fifth of a teaspoonful of honey and a single squashed centipede ... and so on. Happy nightmares! But I think we're safe (for now). The Dinosaur Ants are somewhere in Outer Space. Although there's a strange knocking in my wall cavity...
And they march, and they march... and do they know what it is they do>
i like this... thank you
Thanks for the comments and a warm welcome to PiR, Abludu.
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