Midsummer Murthers

A sometime collaborator of mine
in dramatic crime
fingered the robin
as a serial killer.
I was stunned
Britain's favourite bird?
The Christmas cover chick?
But it is true.
She/he/it/they kill out of the blue
from just after fledging
until its living is through.

Kill-eat-kill-eat-sing-kill
that's all they do
save for brooding
a child-killer or three
which they nourish with corpses
some not dead
until suffocation
stomachs them to rest.

Mind you
their prey are no angels
eating each other
or still-growing fodder.

It's slaughter, slaughter 
everywhere
and not a stop to think.
Eat or be eaten
the natural take-way
no charge will be made
a lifetime to pay.

In other deadly news:
The bats are back, 
taking over the slaughter at night 
from those scimitar spitfires: the swifts. 

A bat, we're told can consume 7000 insects each night.
A swift can more than double that in a day.
There's a lot of death happening high above my hammock.
Of course, the victims are mostly very small, 
not very cuddly, 
and rarely appear on Christmas cards.
So that's all right then.

And 
as in the last report
there's more murder in the air.
The small-minded know it.
The shuttlecock midges
are dashing nowhere
to avoid detection.

From the TV aerial,
Sid Jay, 
the carrion crow, 
cackles
He and Hattie will swallow anything they can get;
nudge nudge.

It's no joke,
no laughing matter
no propriety required
no manners needed
just grab, gobble and go.

The ladybirds are lady killers
whatever gender they choose.

While, if we drag the pond,
we'll uncover a live and kicking
marinade of tadpoles
most of whom will never leap out of the pan.
There are too many to be counted among the dead.


Down in the shallow wave
the dragonfly nymphs 
spend five years
eating or being eaten
and when it comes to cannibalistic infanticide
the fish are not fussy
and the newts are notorious
for murder in the mud,
their witnesses are gobsmacked,
saying nothing.

When it comes to investigation
the inquiry is the solution.
Reincarnation by digestion.
Life is but a moving menu.
Afterlife is just dessert. 

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More unliving can be found in:

To investigate further look here: Ice & Lemon

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