Joe Mole
Marnhull Danny 1974
His eyes were luminous steel blue, alive
with twinkling shards of mischievous fun.
His face, a weathered map of his long life:
brown and crumpled, carved by clean air and sun.
A grubby khaki flat-cap, jauntily askew,
bedraggled grey-green ancient jacket
secured with hairy binder-twine (calves too),
brown dungarees, muddy boots and thumb-stick.
His gruesome work was in grazing meadows
under attack from an invasion beneath
of unwelcome little furry fellows
destined to perish between steel-sprung teeth.
Tiny corpses hung in a row (job done)
on barbed wire like Joe met at Verdun.
(A Danny was the name given to any man from the village of Marnhull in Dorset. The word was in common use locally during the 1970’s but is now rarely heard.)
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14 lines (FBRSO)
Craig Andrew White 02/0711
