Eden the Robot Gardener

He’s programmed to follow instructions:

lay down the mulch, deadhead the begonias,

keep the cherubs around the fountain birdshit free.

But since he discovered his master and mistress

cold and stiff in their kitchen one morning

he’s surprised himself by venturing off-piste,

devoting an hour to counting tadpoles, another to lifting

the stones around the pond to admire the oddballs beneath:

the woodlouse in its dusty suit of armour,

the millipede, divided into more segments

than the breakfast television his mistress would watch

as she sipped her oolong tea. Eden’s calls

to the emergency services had gone unanswered,

so he used his detachable spade-arm to bury the humans

beside their beloved weeping cherry. His mistress

had ordered him to get rid of the caterpillars

that were decimating the bougainvillea,

but he decided to let them pupate. He watched

as they spun silk pads, hung from them like miniature bats,

and slowly shed their skins to reveal chrysalids beneath.

With the hyper precision of his microscopic vision,

the crinkled sepia surface of each chrysalis seemed

like the strange terrain of some unexplored world.

Yesterday, a butterfly hatched too soon.

Just ragged scraps for wings. It fell to the lawn,

scrabbled in frantic circles before a magpie

stalked over and snatched it up.

All that industry, that intricacy of conception,

only to emerge so calamitously wrong.

In his recharging chamber at night, Eden thinks

of them in their chrysalids, bodies breaking down,

cells rearranging, no way of knowing

what will survive of their changing.

‘Eden the Robot Gardener’ won 1st prize in the Verve Poetry Competition in 2022 and was published in The Verve Anthology of Beginnings, selected and edited by Caroline Bird.

Breakfast with the Scavengers

“There’ll be no hope for any of us until

we accept that transcendence to a supreme good

is attainable here on Earth,” said the hyena

through a mouthful of baby gazelle. “You’re right,

of course,” replied the vulture, tearing off

a chunk of tender belly flesh with his talons.

“Until we trust that this is paradise,

and that we each belong here equally, none

of us will ever live to our absolute potential.”

The hyena sighed. “It would be so much easier

without Old Misery Guts stomping about.

He is such a bad influence on the more

impressionable animals.” “Oh, he’s useless!

He’s known this stuff for years, yet persists

in peddling his preposterous tales. A bloodier-

minded creature you will not find.” “I guess

some folks are just born perverse,” said the hyena,

and coughed up a sliver of rib bone. “Too true,

too true,” answered the vulture. “But come, we

mustn’t get ourselves down. Beat you to the heart!”

“Ha!” cried the hyena. And the race was on.

‘Breakfast with the Scavengers’ was first published by Forklift, Ohio in 2017.

Yeti

He bathes at daybreak,

rolling in freshly fallen snow,

dries off on a rock in the sun,

goes foraging for food.

He picks berries, snags himself a rabbit,

and another for his guest.

On the way back to the cave, he glimpses

his reflection in a pool and wonders,

for the thousandth time, if his fur

isn’t thinning on top, if he might still be thought

fetching enough to entice a mate,

should one happen along.

He’d discovered the mountaineer

unconscious at the foot of a crevasse,

left leg wrenched askew,

blood oozing from his head.

Subtleties are out –

they communicate via point and grunt –

but they muddle through in good cheer,

laugh at each other’s antics,

groom one another for fleas.

After all these months,

the mountaineer’s beard tickles his belly,

and he wolfs down raw meat

with relish. Yeti has learned

to cover his mouth when he burps

and he’s grown quite adept at charades.

Spring will be here soon

and the mountaineer must return to the city,

his work, his family: the ones

who depend on him. He’s stronger now,

the merest hint of a limp.

Together, they sit and watch icicles

melting from the roof of the cave.

Each drop, as it falls,

reminds them to be brave.

‘Yeti’ was commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize and published in the Winchester Poetry Prize Anthology in 2023.