Epigraph: The Pismire Oration

by Margaret Griffiths

Kreck, kreck, the Plumeys have been down pick pick
again. The valley-balls, the lupes, the liplap danglers
are all mussled and distrayed. Who was scooting
on the oakmost roam, and did not give the larum
to beware us? We could all have been mordered
in our buds, culled in curls and couchings.

O my simlings, gather round in heedance.
First we must brush and bellish, make bloomheads
clean and sparkish, then we can cusp and susp
and I will tale you tellings of long days ago,
stores of queens and trells and hellent warfor.

Ho, hard there, fattyfiller, with your seggy bodments,
do not munge upon these leaves. Peel off
and mandicate elsewhere. This pliant plot,
this green clingdom, this is our heapsake,
our hill-land, our gem set in a sylvan lea.

Rejuice, my simlings, simsters.We'll browse avids
on the fallage, surp meet mead nectar soon.
All life is ground and gladly—part from Plumeys.
May Magog smart the flockers from the highs.

The Bournemouth Echo
Alan Wickes: http://www.alanwickes.org/goodbye_grasshopper.htm

8
May, 2010

Margaret Griffiths (Maz, Grasshopper) died in 2009, aged 62. She was a poet of great talent and inimitable style, whose work will achieve even wider recognition for its excellence. This issue of The Flea is dedicated to The Grasshopper, a much-missed Lady.

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This poem and the accompanying sound file were sent to Your Humble Editor by Margaret Griffiths in 2004. They are presented here as a tribute to a wonderful poet, and to widen knowledge of her verse. The sound file is of Margaret reading her poem. Its sound quality has been cleaned up from a very noisy original by Peter Bloxsom.