Literary Vegan

The heartbeat of the whale-throat sea  is slow, pushing a world's blood: blue heavy with history, into prophecy that licks into waves like a dragon's tongue frothy with wind and disbelief. But I believe – my red rhythm recognises something floating furious, my own pulse dances in the bigger beast's drum. And creature, we scream the dirt and silver of the storm, eroded limbs and salt-eyed strong breaking the line of water into a circle – myself into myself back up to the surface. C. LJ 2025 (Inspired by Six Wild Crowns)

Red Kite in the after-rain: a mountain-sharp survivor  of the apocalypse city – wild exists, wild lives  in your triangle stillness. Moth-tail, rust-tilt, lit-up by clouds, your feather-tips grip the wind itself; like you harness more than air – the whole sky is subject  to your clawed curtsey. I am – iron and balcony give way to dandelion belly, bird-bone beast. You do not warn. You pre-exist. Seagulls have just scattered at one glimpse of you,  gliding in from where God waits  with a gauntlet glove. C. LJ Ireton 2025