Photo by Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash

 
 
 
from Five Poems for Mushrooms
 
 

    Collared Earth Star

 

Undeterred by lax mornings
of noiseless rain. I renew
an infatuation with the wild
plum and the amanita, trudging
through the forest floor searching
for the revelation of a shared frailty.

Allow me this fundamental awe- to whisper
the parabola of insistent
longing that dips within, and praise
this stubborn mandrake

stern balloon, this bulbous pod
of noxious mould
brooding like a fleshy cowl
in the half-light; tear-drop
spore bomb - wee planet
cresting the soil's firmament.

 
 
 

    Scarlet Elf Cup

 

Hidden in this inland mire
where a few cold, lone,
winter waders endure
under a white sky

is a webbed furnace
of red mouths
each no bigger than a rosehip
or an imp's chalice

threading the residue
and liminal damp,
forming a neural network
of curiosity and decay.

All divinity accounted for
save the ugly or humble
- you, dregs of colour,
reign in the anonymous cold.