Narrowboat Hootenanny

Roving Otter knew where
to get a decent narrowboat.
He found one at a lock
by the local pub.

The pigeons did their job,
dive bombing punters
sitting at the outside table.
We took no time in boarding.

I assumed command,
Father Vole was the lookout,
Smoking Gose was our engineer,
and Otter drove the boat.

The badgers, foxes, ducks,
geese, moorhens, rabbits,
even Spencer Swan booked
a reservation on the prow.

But our favourite friend
was Manic Owl.
He brought the instruments,
drums, guitars, and saxophones.

The man arrived in time
to see us waving from the stern.
Turns out cruising's all
a narrowboat's good for.

We set up our instruments.
Otter had his bass,
Vole was on the drums,
and Goose had a piano.

Manic Owl had a saxophone,
faded gold and battered,
but it produced sweeter notes
than anything on the water.

I had my old guitar,
an archtop with a red finish.
It was the lead in a jam
with a most ear-raising tune.

Our party went on into the night,
rhythm after rhythm buzzing
off the boat and across the water
to disturb slumbering cows.

Ducks danced with rabbits,
badgers danced with geese.
Spencer Swan demonstrated
the arm-breaker swing

for a group of astonished teal,
while Owl blistered solos
on his saxophone, and we
kept the beat of our hootenanny.

NaPoWriMo #24: Chilling on the Water

They know a lot them ducks,
about where it's best to retire
when the need for rest takes over.

A mallard, who works every day
on the weir-torn river in town,
dabbles on an oval lake

designed by gardeners
imitating nature's haphazard
perfection.

He mingles with the swans and geese,
scoffs at the moorhens
as they patrol the reed.

The moorhens return the gesture.

His family sit on the banks,
five fuzzy brown ducklings
and their speckled mother.

The ducklings learn to swim
in an uncertain straight line,
the first of many lessons

while their father tries to sleep
on the water, and is dive-bombed
over and over by a hooligan chaffinch.

At day's end, they sit and watch
the swans argue over who shall chase
an unsuspecting coot.

Wildfowl

On a Wednesday, bleak and drizzly,
the pond surface hardly sizzly,
ducks dabble and watch as the world
goes by with the speed of a snail.

Not a single thing disturbs them,
yet the dawn of night rouses them
to prepare for the evening's rave,
for the evening's great pond rave,
a rave all the wildfowl crave.

They line the waters in their droves,
led by the Mute Swan Club of Stow,
with geese, grebes and moorhens galore.
A moulting mallard emerges from reeds

to begin his set intended to please
birds from Cardiff to Tennessee
who gather near the shallow shore
to hear what tunes the duck has in store,
sounds not heard on the pond before.

The mixer rises from the depths
where the sticklebacks would have slept
had it not been a Wednesday night.
Distorted honking and quacking,

with feathers ruffled and scratching,
the rave rages and rages all night
'till the return of the sunlight
and all the wildfowl take flight.