archy says hooray

by Andy Croft

boss i have heard
some human beans think
hungry and homeless people
are like cockroaches i
am flattered at
last some humans beans feel
sorry for us poor insects
hooray there is
hope for some human beans after
all either that or the
human beans who think
hungry and homeless people
are like cockroaches
are worse than
cockroaches we would
never be so unkind
                               archy

Fearful Symmetry

for Sheree Mack

by Andy Croft

‘Each has a gift that Nature gave,
But some their neighbour’s fame must crave.’
- Ivan Krylov

The lion shakes its regal mane,
The monkey thumps his chest,
The narwhal waves its tusk, the crab his claws;
The peacock flaunts its gorgeous train,
The bowerbird his nest,
The civet sprays her musk, the tiger roars,
As they will:
Creation on the catwalk dressed to kill.

What artist’s palette ’ere revealed
Such bright and vivid hues?
What hand or eye could frame such drop-dead threads?
What cobbler’s last has ever heeled
So many fuck-me shoes?
This cattle-market game of turning heads
Means your date
Is either your next meal or else your mate.

Alas, far from the critics’ praise
There dwells Arachne’s kin
Whose intricate designs go unrewarded;
Condemned by vain and boastful ways
To sit alone and spin
And know their silken lines are not applauded,
Spiders must
Live out their days in realms of gloom and dust.

Frustrated by their dark estate,
The eight-legged tribe agreed
To give a special prize to Nature’s spinners;
So others might appreciate
The art that spiders need,
They asked their friends the flies to crown the winners.
As it does,
The teeming insect world began to buzz.

While waiting for the six-legged crowd
To hit the spiders’ gala,
Each thought her own design beyond compare,
Original, authentic, proud –
But flies know that the parlour
Where spiders like to dine, that winding stair,
Leads us straight
To something that no art can imitate.

And so, while other creatures sing
And preen and prance and puff,
This cobweb crew’s always the world’s outsiders;
When artless Nature does its thing,
And struts its gorgeous stuff,
The little beady gaze of every spider’s
Still on the prize,
In realms of dust and dark, still counting flies.