Wood MenA Poem by David Lewis PagetWe
dropped down into the forest on A
Friday afternoon, Myself
and a team of Dendronauts Left
peering through the gloom, Our
Dirigible had failed, and crashed Right
through the canopies, We
found ourselves on the forest floor, Staring
up at the trees. There
wasn’t a lot of growth down there Just
dead and dying waste, The
canopy so thick, the sunlight Couldn’t
penetrate. ‘Now
what do we do?’ howled Carol Timms, ‘We’re
eighty miles from base…’ The
hole we’d punched in the canopy Had
closed, left barely a trace. ‘They’ll
send a party out to search,’ Said
Doctor Avignon, But
nobody spoke, we feared the worst, We
knew that he was wrong. ‘Can
somebody climb the highest tree?’ Said
the pilot, Andrew Young, The
trees were a hundred and fifty feet Where
the canopy overhung. ‘We’ll
have to walk,’ said Gordon Tombs, ‘We’ll
have to leave the ship, We
might just come on a clearing where The
trees are spread a bit, They
often fall in the monsoon rains When
the ground is waterlogged, The
roots are shallow and rip right out Where
the ground becomes a bog.’ He
shouldn’t have mentioned that fateful word For
the rain came teeming down, Down
in streams from the canopy So
we thought that we might be drowned, Then
with the rain there came the heat, So
humid, Carol cursed, ‘We’re
going to sweat or drown down here, I
don’t know which is worse.’ So
Tombs led off with a compass that He
had, with keys on his ring, ‘If
we head due east we might get out, We
have to try something!’ In
minutes we were soaked, and steam Was
rising from our clothes, The
mud was forming underfoot And
the smell was on the nose. We
sludged our way for an hour or two ‘Til
Carol Timms had cried, ‘I
can’t go on, I’m not so strong, My
legs feel like they’ve died!’ Then
up ahead there were cobwebs linking Every
root and tree, And
caught in the web were shrivelled bats, How
big would the spiders be? We
cut and we hacked our way through these, They
clung at every step, But
Andrew had some sort of a fit And
he couldn’t catch his breath. A
spider, big as a dinner plate Was
clinging to his back, He
screamed just once, then dropped to the ground With
a fatal heart attack. The
Doctor stumbled and gashed his arm On
the bark of a giant tree, And
sap was mingling with his blood Before
he pulled it free, Then
Tombs leant back on a mildew patch And
it stung, and clung to his skin, ‘I
have a terrible feeling, Guys, We’ll
never get out,’ said Timms. We
left Andrew, and we walked on through The
web, ‘til the Doctor cried, ‘I
feel some terrible thing is growing Here
on my arm, inside.’ We
looked at the arm of Avignon And
the skin looked just like bark. While
Tombs was growing a mildew patch Up
from his hand, in the dark. His
fingers were sprouting shoots and leaves At
an ever increasing pace, ‘By
God, we’ve got to get out of here For
the sake of the human race.’ ‘There’s
things down here that shouldn’t be,’ Cried
Carol Timms in fear, Then
began to tear off her sodden clothes In
a fit of hysteria. A
tribe of ants ran over her skin, Were
biting her red and raw, I
beat them off as she screamed, but others Streamed
on up from the floor, In
minutes she was stripped to the bone And
sank to the ground and died, I
turned to run, with Avignon, With
Tombs ahead as a guide. We
found a spot where the trees were felled A
clearing, long and wide, A
hole was torn in the canopy I
could see a storm-lit sky, But
Avignon was sprouting leaves And
some fungal type of rot, For
then the tendrils under his feet, Rooted
him to the spot. While
Tombs was growing a fungus, green All
over his hands and face, It
grew so fast, I couldn’t believe, But
I knew he’d lost his race. It
sprouted out, all over his tongue And
choked at the back of his throat, As
he fell and died, I thought he sighed, But
all that was left was his coat. The
chopper found me, dropped me a line, I
was left a gibbering wreck, I
couldn’t answer their questions then, I
doubt I could answer them yet! I’d
seen men basically turned to wood, I’d
seen one turn to a tree, So
didn’t know whether I’d dare to show The
fungus that’s growing in me! David
Lewis Paget © 2013 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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17 Reviews Added on January 25, 2013 Last Updated on January 25, 2013 Tags: Dendronauts, canopy, fungus, forest Author
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