Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

The crocus awoke to brilliant noonday sunshine and in its heart (or core) in its stem knew that it was spring again. It immediately thought of the beatific bees and wily wasps who would be after its pollen and nectar. The sun melted the last elements of frost in its stem and roots - the crocus almost yawned but didn't have a mouth of course. For an hour the little purple-blue flower luxuriated, nodding slowly in the low warm dry wind to its fellow crocuses, thousands of his brothers arrayed on a treeless hillside overlooking a river in the heart of Lebanon. They all knew that they were naturally beautiful and were proud of it - they were so vain that they wanted to be admired. But who could be around to compliment them? 

Suddenly, and without any warning, out of the river crawled the ugliest crocodile that ever had existed. How could crocodiles fancy each other? thought the first crocus – and all the other crocuses laughed as they were in maximum rapport and empathy with each other. This rapport – look it up kids in a children’s thesaurus or dictionary – meant that they could get other crocuses’ thoughts even at quite a long distance. The crocodile, brown and green armour dripping with river mud, scowled as he knew that they were laughing at and scorning him.

“We’ll show them all a thing or two!” He ferociously uprooted dozens of frightened crocuses as he lurched and staggered from the river bank up the hill, charging through the purple-blue ranks of the crocus army with great rage and violence. Dying so young, the crocus who had started the scorn felt nothing but fear and cold. The vanity of his species died through the and malice of the gigantic crocodile. Gluttony and avarice were fighting another war in nearby cities, but this was the abandoned countryside wilderness. The crocodile, in the midst of his ravages and mayhem, then heard before he saw a large tiger laughing a deep-bellied laugh on top of the hill, where he had been hiding behind a mass of tall weeds whilst sunbathing. The croc eyed Mr Tiger warily and suspiciously – was not the tiger an amazing hunter on dry land, equal to or having more prowess than the crocodile himself?

The two predators locked eyeballs, and the mighty ones did not flinch. Both sent messages of the thousands of lesser creatures that they had devoured. They didn’t call each other tyrants or monsters – or serial killers. The last of the crocuses died, viciously uprooted by the angry crocodile. The laughing tiger turned his back on the crocodile, showing the mighty ranks of Deadly muscles on his undefeated back striped like a Glasgow Celtic player. The prehistoric crocodile did not advance to the top of the hill, having thought twice about challenging Mr Tiger. The tiger did a little dance, full of dark humour and lampooning, and sat down behind the tall weeds again. He did not fancy croc meat at all, but after all it was his hill from which he spied his food, judging rabbits, hares, beavers, foxes, weasels, stoats, moles and ferrets all as fair game. That is: edible creatures not worth worrying about. Those victims’ feelings he simply denied. This land was his – yes, even the river! – which might be full of fish! That reminded him that the croc might be eating his – the tiger’s – fish and frogs. So, quickly the tiger turned around to frighten the cheeky croc. But as soon as he did, he knew that the croc had already gone, back into the swift deep blue river where it had glided downstream.

Incidents like this, confrontations and challenges, happened millions of times a day in diet-conscious global nature which few zoologists dared venture into, despite universities rewarding them if they did.