Parma Ham

Capman Bootman

It would always be a wet-dog morning
As we set out to gather mushrooms
Pulling on old clothes, hands still half asleep
Wellington boots and out to the country
For a morning spent scouring the fields -
A forensic team checking the crime scene

Keeping to the hedge so not to be seen
A strange way to spend a Sunday morning
Creeping like thieves through farmer’s fields
Our quarry the unsuspecting mushrooms
Silently grazing in the open country
While giant puffballs quietly drown in sleep

Amongst the cow pats and droppings of sheep
Whose woolly bodies warm the morning scene
Their stale breath flavouring the country
As carrier bag goblins steal the morning
Choosing only the ripest of mushrooms
Tracking father’s footsteps across the fields

His keen ‘mushrooming’ sense knows the best fields
Dreams of country home cooking in his sleep
Monday will see his chicken and mushroom
Pie the likes of which you’ve never seen
A slice for lunch the following morning
After our day in mushrooming country

For centuries man has tamed this country
Hedging his boundaries and planting fields
But we take something back on these mornings
A wild crop for our plate as farmers sleep
Bags bulging as we exit the rural scene
Having found our own wild chestnut mushrooms

To those that know there is magic mushrooms
The pagans learned to worship the country
As teens we realised the mushroom scene
searching beneath the troughs in corner fields
Looking for a different kind of sleep
Which with any luck would keep us ‘til morning

But those mornings were made for the country
Hunting mushrooms with dad in secret fields
Where the fungi sleep and are seldom seen


'found' poem

Someone has taken off – and lost
The label on the can
Two glassy lines of glue
Trace the lines of stripped paper
Where the label was attached

batch number – RG2JD 19547
Is embossed on one of the ends
No one can tell what’s up
And what’s down
The metal isn’t very old

They do not like to throw it out
Might be salmon – not cheap
Or tuna steaks in brine
Pineapple rings in sucrose
Guava halves, Lychees, leek soup

Ought to open up the can
Have a look inside, have a taste
Plan a meal around the reveal
Must be something they like, or liked
After all they bought it – didn’t they?

Shake it; tip it up to an ear
Compare it to the other cans
Find a match in size and shape
Could it be beans or fruit or fish?
An unopened birthday gift

Contents a macabre description
Baby flesh, sliced fingers, ravioli
Maybe that’s why there’s no label
A cuckoo’s egg in the larder
Something for the homeless shelter

One night, when the wine is gone
They put the can under candle light
Play the drunken guessing game
An aphrodisiac perhaps, glace cherries
Canned music from another era

It’s tempting just to stab it
Wound it, see how it bleeds
We all should have a can like this
Let it rust, a cupboard conundrum
To wound or never touch again

(cf Jim Crace The Devil's Larder)