Pond life

Sweetness couldn’t find

a scene more innocent

than summer lily-pads,

patronised by dragonflies

and fumbling bumblebees

Picture-postcard skies

shimmer on the surface,

allaying all suspicion

of an algae-cloistered murk

But down among the roots

and sucking mud,

a multitude of plots evolve

in all their sordid machinations

It requires but a stick

of modest reach

to penetrate the artifice

and air the stench