8 Jun 2010
Matt Harvey on Slugs
Totnes legend poet Matt Harvey has just posted, as part of his occasional ‘mattmail’ email newsletter (which you can subscribe to on his website), a rather wonderful poem about slugs. Matt is an old friend of Transition, and did the equally wonderful piece for BBC Devon about TTT a while ago. Given that slugs are an oft-discussed subject here at Transition Culture, I thought you would enjoy this…. Matt is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships’ official ‘Poet-in-Residence’, so expect to hear more from Totnes’s favourite export in coming weeks. I love slugs being referred to as “bold-as-brass brassica editors”…
Slug
duel with a non-dualist
low-born land mollusc
high-impact intruder
free-loader, sprout-spoiler
meandering marauder
disrespecter
of my broad-beans’ border
you’ve a one-track mind
in a one-track body
diligent pillager
soft-horned invisigoth
slow silver scribbler
paradoxically busy sloth
you’re a tithe-taker, hole-maker
indiscriminate direct debitor
bold-as-brass brassica editor
you’re a squishetty spoilsport
a glistening drag
the liquorice all-sort
nobody wants to find in the bag
it’s time that you were brought to book
you’re not as tasty as you look
listen chum, you are disposable
look at my thumb, it is opposable
unwelcome invertebrate
this might just hurt a bit
I pluck you and chuck you
into distant dew-drenched greenery
isn’t that mean of me?
slug, when all is said and done
you can hide but you can’t run
nadia
8 Jun 10:15pm
he is genius!
Richard Lawson
8 Jun 10:41pm
Slug-chucker,
I mock your most practised fling
My slime just loves your thumb,
I land in the muck at your foot.
You have no choice but kill me.
And I will fill your lily livered,
liberal dreams
with guilt.
Tess Wilmot
8 Jun 11:20pm
mmmmmmm, thanks for reminding me, must go and check the runnerbeans that I planted today! Out with the torch, on with the wellies ….
Joanne Poyourow
9 Jun 2:37pm
This guy needs CHICKENS!
Ben Brangwyn
9 Jun 4:40pm
Or better still down in these parts, Khaki Campbell ducks
Guy
10 Jun 12:55pm
As I Slime in,
A true piscean,
One of Hermes legendary breed.
You admire me,
and like Obi Wan Kinobi
You Know you just cant kill me.
I abseil in to
your copper banded raised bed,
and mess with your head.
An alchemist of vegetation,
perrenial sentinal,
weeding out the weak hearted.
Exposing the cruel minded,
give thanks,speciest,
plant me your tender annuals.
marquise de nonce
10 Jun 9:00pm
i’d like to hear that sung aloud, possibly set to either “you’re a mean one, mr. grinch” or heart’s “sing child.”
Catherine Mergounis
24 Jun 9:35pm
slimetastic! those floral decimators die happy in our garden, they are rather partial to pale ale…