I’m grateful for all the small glances
and glimpses of futures to come,
Portents and patterns I see in the sky,
The formations of birds I see as they fly
Foretelling fortunes, they never deceive.
Rely on the written word of the birds.
They never lie.
They tell every morning their message of truth
By the colour of eggs, the shapes of their legs
And direction of flight.
My grandmother gave me the gift of these things.
I understand all that the dawn chorus brings.
The persistent pounding of the drum
Repeats and repeats it’s pattern on
The sound draws closer from the distance.
The drum beats on in my head.
Half in hope, half in dread
I await the dancing throng to come
And the man in old disguise
Wears the ancient painted mask.
He grabs me, spins me
Underneath his black hooped skirts.
In the dark he whirls me around
Through the streets of the town
To the beat of the drum, drum, drum.
He spins me round and round around,
Hurling me finally outward,
Out and out through the crowd.
Now I’m standing here alone, far outside
The drum beats, on and on
Until it’s faded, far, and gone.
My brain can’t handle strict instruction.
What is it you’re still wanting from me?
Meanings have many fluctuations.
I need pure words to liberate me,
inspire me and set me free.
The key to all this is a love of the sounds,
and when I use all the tricks of the trade
with substance poetic, and lyrical verse
and something to wrap my tongue around,
even if I only write nonsense
the meaning at last is often profound.
I got the blues so bad.
Had the worst dreams I ever had
I was hanging out with the dead.
Those old ghosts controlling my head
Making me deep midnight blue
‘Cause I can’t get back to you no matter what I do.
I’m stuck on you like glue.
Baby, I’m so purple, battered and bruised.
When you were a lop eared rabbit
and I was a battered old bear
we rattled around the countryside
In an unbalanced three wheel cart.
On a whim you broke my heart.
But when my arm dropped off
and all my straw stuffing fell out
you pushed it all back in.
Only a very good friend would care enough to do that.
Ob-la-di Ob-la-da was a happy song
Sung in a happy time
But we were tangled in blue.
La la la la life goes on.
I found a new love
but I’m still wrapped up in you.
Poems used to come easy;
I could refine them or not as I wished.
Now I have to struggle and strain using only six lines
To squeeze out some half-born attempt
That ends as a whimpering flop.
I should really know when to stop.
The Dreaming Path 