Poem

A week ago, I asked for ideas or titles that I might use to spark another poem into existence. I focused upon a title suggested by JayCee, the Isle of Man based  blogger responsible for "The Diary of a Nobody". The title JayCee suggested was "The Dark Side"...

I pictured woodland in the shadow of a hill with night falling and I thought about the current rise of dark political forces in Europe, America and various other corners of our planet. I wondered if I might be able to meld the two together - the dark woods and the dark hearts. This is what arose:-

____________________________________

The Dark Side

With dusk, shadows congeal
Becoming night.
On old animal tracks
We cut through these forbidding trees
Stumbling now
In an odour of decay -
Of rotten stumps and
Gangrenous mushrooms clustered
In gangs, their flesh uneatable
With spores of nocturnal creatures
Decomposing in the gloom.
It is a place for iron hearts
And unforgiving stares.
The relentless march of brutes
Echoes everywhere -
Taking Nature in their stride,
Singing their hollow anthems,
Trampling toward pale glints of starlight
Blind in their faithless fantasies
Dark heralds of a blacker night.