As if a child should understand an  adult’s muddle,
putrid oil slick puddle,
the dreadful pain we foist on wide-eyed offspring.
Robotic elders crush with rigid slabs of Portland censure whatever spark remains in those tiny rosebud cheeks before their prime.
Those innocents should never have to wrap their nascent minds around the wanton desecration of intertidal lakeland wetness gradients,
the callous douse of velvet purple algerita berries,
blighted by the stark timbre cloud forms
that recklessly pour bile on every genus.
The rug rats at our feet  may never know the joys of sap-addicted sugar gliding nocturnal possums, whose acrobatic tree to tree mirror ball exploits mock Isaac Newton,
or the kinkajou of tail grip fame who flaunt their tan glow wooly fur coat in broad daylight,
or the dawn to dusk fennec fox, that doughty eagle owl and jackal dodger whose kissing cousin dens pockmark terracotta forests.                                    But not alone in wider worlds are children being deprived.


A heartless milieu also  asks our clutch and clan to dwell in
alloy girder mousetraps, those pale decor rat infested tumble downs gouged out by scrimp and scrape rust bucket caterpillars.
Beyond belief we tolerate the nick and hoist elevator,
that pressure cooker transit flight abduction of the harried wage slave parent,
those cotton  garment dress code senseless
dragonfly stand-ins that hover in mid air.
There’s every chance we’ll leave our nursling’s ire to future bands of mutant stem cell rockers who are duty bound to sculpture rimshots meshed in suckling chimes,
when validating rawhide rattle chainsaw fret board anthems
at crowd mosher mud fests,
where rivers of apocalyptic visions burst the bank.
If only grown ups listened to that inner vocal quiver that we
may not yet have cast into plastic resin folly for the  generations weaned in toxic smoke rooms,
we’d pollinate a luscious fairground acorn dotted garden with childhood zest its one and only buzzword.
A sweet treat gift with natural flavour pending,
eternal life for baby planet daisy chains of tender petal linkage,
who‘d finally experience pure clutter free environments,
an eco world that values new born thirst for natural realms

The above work won a shared  second place medal on a Poetry Soup contest.
The Gem That Slipped Through The Cracks  judged on
10 th February 2021 by sponsor Edward Ibeh

IInner Vocal Quiver was placed 7 out 10 successful entrants in A Premiere Contest named 
Premiere V111 - Open on August 22nd 2025

This week's entry  was also a Featured Poem on Poetry Soup in 2021