Biospherical pt 3
Still can't make the video upload, but here's the text for my North Devon Biosphere piece, working title, Bioculturaldiversity...(!)
primrose, campion, cranesbill, vetch, dog-rose, foxglove, holly
hawthorn, blackthorn, cross-leaved heath, bracken, bristle bent, beech
purple moorgrass, yorkshire fog, sheep fescue, tormentil
birdsfoot trefoil, pedunculate oak, bell heather, western gorse
lundy cabbage, rowan, hazel, irish lady’s tresses
wood anemone, buckler fern, orchid, ash, thrift
orange fruited elm lichen, purple ramping fumitory
sea rush, common reed, marram grass, thyme, eyebright, portland spurge
Aspi-what? What like breathing? I dunno what you mean by aspiration
Oh, oh right! No, I don’t need no further education
My situation’s sorted, all mapped out, I’ve got it set so
I don’t need to worry, Mum’s gonna get me on the checkouts at Tesco,
Not gonna let go of that am I? It’s a great job. Ironic?
What like that shit song? It’s like Mum says, when the gravy train comes, get on it,
Simple as that. Might be unfair but with so little jobs we have to look after ourselves.
Leave? Why would I wanna leave? We’ve always lived here. I don’t need to go nowhere else.
tortoiseshell, red admiral, peacock, orange tip, green hairstreak, speckled wood
pearl bordered fritillary, high brown fritillary, plume moth, marbled white
dingy skipper, grizzled skipper, goat moth, dragonfly
great green bush cricket, bloody nose beetle, brown argus, large carder bee
Look, even if I wasn’t black, I’d always be an outsider,
You’re not Devonian unless you’ve been here three generations and when you’re cut you bleed cider!
Well, I decided to buy my second home here cos I fell in love with it when I was a kid,
Our school brought us here to work on a farm for a week, best thing they ever did.
A few months every year, but when I retire I’ll move here full time
No, you get the odd look or comment, but everyone else is fine.
It’s mostly those who moved here from cities cos the multicultural project was failing ‘em,
Irony is, they move down here, and they also get treated as aliens!
yellow hammer, whitethroat, chaffinch, song thrush, dunnock, bullfinch, teal
bar-tailed godwit, cormorant, curlew, shelduck, dunlin, knot,
lapwing , wigeon, wheater, woodpecker, wood warbler, stonechat, chough
pied flycatcher, cormorant, gannet, nightjar, fulmar, gull
oystercatcher, cirl bunting, skylark, corncrake, cuckoo
golden plover, redstart, redshank, grey partridge, barn owl
common sandpiper, coal tit, blue tit, great tit, roseate tern
peregrine falcon, sparrow hawk, kestrel, buzzard, snipe
Well, I still do the milk round, course it’s not my milk any more,
After the cull we couldn’t go back to the way it was before.
Still do a bit of arable, beef, sheep, farming’s in my blood.
Try not to ruminate too much, we’re not made for chewing cud.
But dairy was dying before foot and mouth, we were tied up and buried in paper
The iron lady cast a long shadow, we always knew we wouldn’t escape her.
There’s no money in milk no more, ‘less you’re prepared to go big
And these hands weren’t made for pens, but tools, for my challenges, I’ll dig.
badger, rabbit, seal, otter, greater horseshoe bat
hedgehog, fox, red deer, dormouse, soprano pipistrelle,
brown hare, slow worm, grass snake, adder, greater mouse eared bat
natterjack toad, common frog, sand lizard, great crested newt
I tell him, ‘Dad, read the sticker, if it’s off shore, I’m off work!’
He says I’m lazy but it’s his fault, he taught me to surf, the berk!
He wanted me to follow the family trade, work in the big shipyard,
But I knew I’d fail to show when the sea called me to rip hard.
And I’m not some hippy peacenik, but I did sort of question why
I’d want to build a boat that sent young men off to die
So I make my paper cutting limbs off trees in my chain-saw surgery,
And when my mistress the sea throws those sets at the beach, that’s life’s only urgency
flat fish, flounder, mullet, salmon, sea trout, shore crab, shad,
common lobster, limpet, bass, painted topshell mussel
leopard spotted goby wrasse, pollack, undulate ray
acorn barnacle, spider crab, peppery furrow shell
beadlet anemone, snakelocks anemone, hydrobia, honeycomb worm
oarweed, bladderwrack, irish moss, amber sand bowl snail
devonshire cup coral, Pink sea fan, scurvy grass, breadcrumb sponge
early gentian, lady’s bedstraw, round headed club-rush.
Nah I’m not scared, can’t wait, it’s exactly what I’d planned.
But it’s weird to think these dunes’ll soon be Afghanistani sand.
I’ll miss ‘em. And my family of course, even this shitty town
Why did I join? Well there’s nothing else going for me, take a look around.
You get good pay, qualifications, I’ll have a serious career
As long as… look it’s nearly last orders, do you want another beer?
You know my granddad trained for D-day here, taught him how to fight…
No. I don’t mate. We’re not trained to question wrong or right.