9. DOG ENDS

More Gore Poetry

MARK KINGSWESTON an early victim of the hunts his poetry evokes the idealistic spirit of those days.

THE PREY

If I should perish think these things,

That in a container in a recycling centre,

Where all classes their cast offs bring,

Will be a book that proved my mentor.

In that book all my deeper thoughts concealed,

My fears of oblivion,

My weaknesses revealed.

All on route to feted Albion.

The pages now all scattered,

As soon will be my bones.

The tale of a prey who’s battered,

Not by life by knocks or stones.

But by injustice brutally unfair,

Dressed as sport as it must.

And all YOU do is stand and stare,

As another of Britannia’s sons bites her rich dust.

All I ask as they clear my mess,

And sanitize the gruesome scene.

Is reflect upon my life nevertheless,

To provide substance where there’s none to glean.

RW WAITS killed in Yeovil by Baron Silkstone’s Hunt.

THEY HOUNDED HIM

On social media nobody followed him,

But in reality he was pursued with vim.

Not by those in well aired togs,

But by nasty types with their vicious dogs.

He evaded their intent with commendable skill,

Though it only prolonged their mission to kill.

For if he escaped to dense rural flora,

He’d be snared by fear worry and trauma.

And if he remained in the heart of the city,

Assisted by the few who ever took pity,

His mind would play on it tricks,

Displaying jagged toothed hounds with blood slurping licks.

When present returned he ran in vain,

For soon they’d be at his heels again.

In thoughts his awful fate was sealed,

Projected uncensored bloody and only one reeled.

A life he had once led to the full,

Succumbed to inglorious death inevitable.

Shackles of terror from his mind could not shake,

The nightmares would play even while he was awake.

Each passing day felt as long as a year,

taken a toll on his looks carved by fear.

Until the day arrived he could taketh no more,

So stepped towards his tormentors with an honourable valour.

The hounds played their role and made him mincemeat,

So all that identified him was his still booted feet.

Despatched like a villain murderer or thief,

Yet the aura that hung was dense with relief.

RM Waits famously was the only Gore Poet who diversified by also composing a Haiku poem. Experts have debated whether this was his last word in which he was effectively commenting upon the brevity of life by using this genre, as he was only 23 when struck down. While others simply believe with the hounds suddenly upon him that he didn’t have the time to write anything other than a Haiku poem. Here it is:

SQUARES

How square my life is

On this bloodstained death chessboard

Now I am cornered.