T-Rex

T-Rex

As old as the hills, Jurassic in fact.

A star of stage and screen.

The tyrant lizard from the reptile age,

Extinct but no has-been.

I can beat a sprinter, with Olympian thighs.

The largest land carnivore of all time,

With terrible teeth to tear you apart

As you fight to escape your primeval slime.

Mock the length of my arms, the size of my skull,

how long to change direction,

but I’ll break off your limbs and bite off your head

and then we’ll discuss natural selection.

Call us Sue or call us Stan, don’t think that you can mock us

I see you quaking with my binocular vision.

The name is T-Rex and I smell you and your fear

You can’t beat me only using derision.

I will crush your will, make your heart rate soar

As I thunder up, hover over you in the famous stoop.

There is no escape from a mouth agape

So go back to your primordial soup.

And leave the powerful to roam the imagination

And pay the king of the dinosaur age due respects.

Most feared. Most revered. Oppressive and cruel

But none more famous than T-Rex.

By Linda Prince

The Ice Cream

The Ice Cream

Stir it up. Swirl the colours: cream, pale yellow or dainty pink

Stir it up. Gyrate the streaks, earthy brown or black like ink.

Spirals agitate, a geology of Neapolitan dessert, different but with a link.

The spoon excavates the ice cream, making whorls of flavour

Gently, imperceptibly the patterns fade and die, but savour

The chill, the thrill, a summer’s day, a rest from daily labour.

The dog runs free across the bay, splashes in salt water the colour of Turkish delight.

The ice is melting, a vortex of sweetness, gone the shades of the traffic light

One creamy muddle, round and round, a sundae whirlpool ammonite.

Ketton cream or German brown, oolitic pink cliffs formed in ice,

Sedimentary streaks of colour, volcanic ice cream bombs sprinkled like silver rice,

Rocks that shine, or glint or fragment, or metamorphic gneiss.

Wandering aimlessly along strata, ice cream tub sticky, lost gradation

The Jurassic Coast looms large against aquamarine sky, white jewelled encrustation.

The dog, in joy aloud she barks, the ice cream drips and breaks the contemplation.

Striations of history, rock striped through and through, keeping us safe and watertight,

Pillars of rock brooding and towering down, awe and inspiring Heritage Site

Jurassic cliffs that have stood the tests of time, keep us safe by day and by night.

By Linda Prince