do my bidding

shake hands for me

travel and bargain

traverse and plea

let me stay in sanctuary

please enter the coal mine

my sweet little canary

*********************************

as a compliment

I will add this old one

(slightly edited):

my effigy

Most days the real me stays home

I send my effigy out into the world

I stay in safety and dream

He comes back in shreds

Often he is angry and demands patches and glue

The next day he makes me go out there

I don’t really know what he did so I get mixed up

People look at me funny and sometimes I think they are on to me

and my scarecrow

He’ll be back tomorrow to straighten out my mess

He will come home whistling “killing me softly “

I never tell him thank you or sorry

I am not so vain as to like him

.

I stood straight and tall with corn

Felt every cell alive

I thought

- I’d rather die than die

brown leaves rattled in the wind

An echo in my ghostly mind

I stood straight and tall with corn

Nearly gone inside

I thought

- I’d rather die than die

.
No Caddo these are not psilocybins but feel free to say things like
” well that explains a lot ”

sometimes i swing on the pendulum
sometimes it chases me
sometimes it bashes me againist the wall
with a perfect rythm
sometimes i lay under it
and laugh
sometimes i mistake it for a bell
and sing inside its silence
sometimes i swing on the pendulum

PDHs 2011 / sixes and sevens

Today’s professional development class was at eight
But I arrived like I always do at such things- at sixes and sevens
From the first day of first grade
in 1970
To 2011
I think I will change

I will go to the right place
I will make a friend
I will be at ease

When we got out at five
I was still at sixes and sevens

A window pops out of the sky
Wings beat and bleed
In a flurry of liberated down

Dry specks of blood crack and fall
Floating down like feathers
Inside Winter’s slow motion

Somewhere in a warm nest
A tiny bird dreams of the day
The time
The sky closed up without warning
She flaps her wings involuntarily
Her mate covers her head with his neck
They close their little black eyes
in  synchronicity

Patience

Later when the melody has sunk in

And the water has turned over

After the shadows of fish have bounced out of the pond

To hide amongst the pines

When the steam of tea rises

and the darkness comes up from the ground

and walks around us like a lion

sometime

after that

I can’t sleep when the moon is full
I feel the ocean’s mighty pull

I grasp at things that might not stay
Things the moon might pull away

I keep watch to feel and see
If this is the death of gravity

I feel plates move within the earth
And push down hard for all I’m worth

I’m thankful when the sky turns red
Now I know gravity’s not dead

The sun rises up without a sound
And pushes everything back down

I can’t sleep when the sky is bright
But somehow I think I might

I want my windows to the floor
Framed by heavy velvet drapes
With the longest golden chord
I’d pull it down and face the day just like royalty
And not one bit of dust to rise in the bright sunlight
And not one moonbeam to penetrate and keep me up all night

I want my windows to the floor
My house upon an ocean bluff
So I could taste the sweet salt air
Or just step out and fall when I have had enough