Bumbarrel

The light is dimming now –
The sun tearing away
To our dark side; its diurnal doppler,
Just as the ambulance sirens
Scream to nothingness
Down the dual-carriageway

It is then, as our glitterball
Starts its twinkling
That a pack of dancers
Leap into a Quickstep –
Light of foot, gracefully
Tip-tapping through the branches

Bumbarrel, Pudneypoke,
Prinpriddle, Huggen-Muffin –
A tuppence-weighted
Zebra stripe, flashes airily
Waiting for the moment
To shimmy, to feed, to hang

Dog Tail, Long Prod,
Poke Pudding, Feather Poke –
Vortexing whispers
A crowd’s chittering laughter
As the evening warmth
Passes through them

Bottle Bird, Bottle-tit
Bottle Builder, Barrel Tom –
Squeezed together
For shared communion
In a feathered beer jug
Web-built, moss-walled

Nimble Tailor, French Pie,
Oven Bird, Miller’s Thumb –
Huddled in hedgerows
Careening through heaths
The jitterbugging Hedge-Jug –
A long-tailed social network