The Garden of Earthly Delights
by and published in Edition Seven of Pomegranate
This morning I pitch a rock to the end of my garden,
measure the diffident crows’
reactions, how
quite without fuss
they begin to leave by generations.
Quickly enough, I begin to miss the crows.
The lunchtime news informs me that the U.S.
shot down a faulty satellite
by guided missile
from an Aegis
cruiser. Presumably they cannot risk
chance of it landing near Beijing or Moscow.
But the crow I saw dead on a lawn in Giverny – Monet’s garden, no less – would seem to fit
an afternoon’s
fait accompli lifespan in Arcadia
ego. Please try to keep off the grass. Thank you.
Tonight the debris cascades over Ireland
the last of its billion dollars
is spun, executes
last orbitals
as it pitch-poles into the sea or past
or a future that’s now close as a stone’s throw.
James Brookes
James Brookes studied at the University of Warwick and has been Senior Student Editor, then a Contributing Editor of The Warwick Review. His poetry has appeared in various places, including Horizon Review, Matchbox Poetry Review, the online magazine Gists & Piths and on a church pew in Taunton, Somerset. He has lived in rural Sussex for most of the last seventeen years.