DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing, editor of View From Atlantis and the 5-7-5 Haiku Journal webzines, and has been published in issues of Genre: Urban Arts, Haiku Journal, Lothlorien Journal, Poetry Quarterly, and Tigershark, and online at A New Ulster, Enchanted Conversation, Library Love Letter, Morphrog, Plato’s Caves and Poetry Pacific. The e-chapbook One Vision is available from Tigershark Publishing’s website.
DJ Tyrer’s website is at https://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/
DJ Tyrer’s Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/DJTyrerwriter/
The Atlantean Publishing website is at https://atlanteanpublishing.wordpress.com/
Gentle, Smooth
He was, she thought
Less bovine than vituline
A less-pejorative, more-lovely term
Unless the vitulinity was lunar in kind
Then perhaps, bovine might be kinder.
Not only in demeanour
Nor his wide-eyed, curious, slightly-haunted look
But, in his very being did the term apply
Such a gentle soul.
His close-cropped hair
And soft, soft skin like the finest, smoothest parchment
Were every bit as calf-like as the rest of him.
But perhaps, the way in which he was most vituline
Most literally so, also the least lovely way
Was his peculiar habit of
As he put it, chewing the cud:
He literally would reach down
And tug free a few blades from a patch of grass
Whether his lawn at home
Or, the verge between footpath and road
And slip them into his mouth
With an almost-conspiratorial look
That displaced his usual expression
The wide-eyed, curious, slightly-haunted look
Which better fitted with his nature
And would begin to chew
Masticating them thoroughly as
Another man might attack a wad of gum
Reducing them to a pulpy green smear
That he would swallow
Descending to just the one stomach
Unable to properly process it
A non-nutritious mass
Dragging itself, everything, up
Like a strident balloon
Keen to be free and see the world
More floorless than flawless
Sometimes no more than a simple nudge
Sometimes something far, far more.
He was, she said, vituline
A single, sorted word
That tells a strange and secret story
Unique and unusual; vituline
Quite unlike anything else bovine
Or, otherwise in future.
© DJ Tyrer
New Nomads
Why do nomads wander?
There may be wanderlust in their soul
But, no, necessity and need
Drive them to journey
Borders slammed shut
Families halted at the point of a gun
Tribes parted by lines on a map.
But, even as governments said ‘no’
To the rootless, lacking geographic ties
New nomads were born
By their very same actions
New nomads driven by new needs
Constantly on the move
Desperate for water, food
Seeking safety in new homes
Far away from where they were born
In constant motion
Not allowed to settle
Unwelcome, they move on
New nomads driven by new necessities
Replacing those forced to halt
In the madness
Of the modern world
© DJ Tyrer