Flying Ants
Tom Morcom
On their tongues
The sun sits hotly
These young farmers,
Skinned leathery red,
Masking the flush of drinking
Slowest cooked meat of their fields.
The big ones do tug o’war
But big for the Cornish
Just means hard and grinning
When your skin slides away with the rope
And you skid flayed,
With an arse full of hobnails
To the pinthanded jeers of the crowd.
Woozey rests standing.
He gurns,
Slick in his sweat,
While smaller hands vaguely rub him;
Later he will run the barrels
But forget his steel soles and slip.
Both head and barrel dent.
Dick’s leg has blunted his axe.
The bulk of Woozey demands
They curl him into the back.
The van sags-
Thoughts spill from his clean brain.
They lug him over the Tamar,
Where a better medic can grin
At his cauliflowered ears and spade nose.
She pumps the brow,
Grafts him with borderland tunes.
In the morning, my dad and uncle,
Swapping the yawns of their hangover
Sign for a baby in hobnail boots.
As a bleary joke,
They name it after a friend.
The Lancia rolls south-west
Grating itself on the hard slope.
At intervals
My uncle vomits at families.
At Old Bodmin Bridge
A crack opens sideways between horizon and windscreen.
‘Been a swarm of flying ants over Taunton’
Woozey states.
My dad swallows his mint,
And plots to drown this doom in beer.
Behind them this late plague buzzes.
~
Tom Morcom was born and raised in rural Cornwall, a quiet place where he had plenty of time to both read and write. After graduating from Durham University with a degree in English Literature, he now looks forward to returning next year to study for his MA, which will focus mainly on Old Norse. His writing so far has been speculative and varied, although perhaps united by its trend towards cheery bathos. Highlights include a play written for Durham Drama Festival, and occasionally being published in local magazines. In his other spare time he can be found playing water polo, or singing very poorly.
Shain Ramjan was born on the 20th of December 1994 in Edmonton London, England. He studied at the New Eton College where his interests for Art and Designing extended. Later he was then introduced into fashion designing by his sister Insheera Ramjan. Attracted to grotesque figures and avant-garde, Shain started doing portraits of celebrities but re-interpreted them to his own views. He plays with different trends and ‘must haves’ in ‘MODE’ to give his artworks a bold daring appeal. Shain mainly paints feminine portraits which are sometimes pure and innocent or morbid and dark; he tries to reflect his dreams and nightmares through his works. He uses crayonnage, ink, pastel, charcoal, paint and some other techniques to add the ‘fashion art’ touch to his works. He believes that art, fashion and music are the three factors which define himself.
