The Wilds
by Jaron Hill
The Night nips a quivering twinkle over a toadstool township.
Pines point to heaven, conductors of a fungal chorus who hum the mountain’s hymn.
The stage is set for holy happenings.
Stained lips meet to conceive dangerous dark whispers, making monstrous fellows of falling light.
Watchful and weathered, The Mountain’s wife is a standing stone.
She bears witness to a duel on the dirt road;
Boy, Flame and Painted Lady buckle beneath rising coils of granular filth.
She draws the curtain, but leaves a crack.
Stoic Susan The Voyeur.
Morning brings a deep inhale of orange with an exhale of blue.
From mossy cradle, the yellow hand of a playful babe wakes to accept its offering.
Steered by the sunlight,
A ghostly motorcade punctures the illusion of birdsong.
Vanishing jet planes lash metallic cracks at the parade, like mechanical serpent tails.
From Earth to far sky,
The Wilds are no place for naive eyes.
Wedged in the babbling brook, a drum beats, drunk on mushroomberries.
Frogs croak, silvernails tap the wheel.
There’s a house, there in the distance.
We march for The Forest Mountain!
Rhinog Fawr
by Wolfie Wright
Upon the wild mountain pass
a harsh quiet in my bones.
Small murmurs of wind, soft and light brush our cheeks.
I am the grasses and the peaty bog
I am the black lake that sits still and severe.
I undress for the mountain lake
pink knickers sitting muddied and wet on the cold rock.
A dripping boggy faggot body.
We walk along the ridge
the giant’s steps.
A clever car
phantom automatic
ringing
HEE-HAW
bling beep wallop.
Through mossy hillocks saturated and swollen
cadaverous pine.
The old witch with white hair/white eyes follows.
Goat duck and swine.
The gay god of the mountain cries and fever sweats over dark heaving skies.
In the cold steaming air his perspiration rolls in thick fog blankets
his sobs small creeks and puddles.
The three legged black cat laps his tears
Hush hush.
The giants tore paths into the rotted woods.
Light falls on to the wasted, porous ground
Fairy rings and toadstools.
A dead man’s coral fingers
reaching from the grave to gasp at the light.
I roost here
A lonely faggot on a rock
fetching sticks and running (no bounding) past monster scenes
in packs – feathered and tragic
cackling and scouring for grubs
Defeated.
The giant squats atop a pine whooping and jiggling his belly
wet sap tips
He exclaims in pleasure
Glorious and triumphant
Clutching his breast for me to feed.
