Gotta bring it down. Gotta split the frown and find a way to make the day get to the end

so I can spend another time of rest and peace among my many membered cast of freaks

and fugitives who lurk among the ashes of the burning walking talking never ending unrewarding bitter characters in uniform who started out quite normal - firm yet informal but neglected and dejected now they sit apart from all the dreams and comic books I catalogued. Now demigods and dragon dogs are running over all the quiet places that I saved for better tasting table wine when all was fine and yet to bare the brunt of days of drought and nights of doubt that never seemed to end as they began.

Look at how the daisy chains

And all the flower shy

The shovel makes the biggest gains

But still the thistles try

The leaves are green and the grass is seen

A waiting for the barrow

A germ, a worm, it never learns

To hide it from the sparrow

The blood runs hot

and the blood runs deep

The blood runs red

in the castle keep

When the wise man speaks

but the strong don’t listen

it’s time to run

The bones grow dry

and the bones grow old

The cries are new

but the bones are old

Now the eyes are open

but the vision fades

with the setting sun

Wearing off and bearing off

to ’void the sudden spray

We run and jump over the hump

and frolic all the day

Over and above the walls

the sound of scrambling legs

But mother got the beastie first

Now we’re left with the dregs

But never fear nor care to hear

the rising of the sun

Another day we’re here to stay

Our banquets just begun

Once again he looks both ways

Better safe than sorry

Sunny, rainy, windy days

Eaten up with worry

Waiting for a trumpet call

Magic words upon the wall

Perhaps he never cared to know

That all this time the sign said ‘go’.

Skittish song that runs and hides

You kill me every day

And if I catch and set you down

You’ll flee another way

When the muse is dead and the ink runs dry

And I face a lonely night

I'll rise and shout and dance and sing

The song I couldn’t write

Thirty centimetres for a

straightened strip of wood

Thirty centimetres, but the

Ruler said “I could...”

“I could have been a metre.

And I could have worn a crown.

But I had no legs to run with

when they came to cut me down”

Once again he looks both ways

Better safe than sorry

Sunny, rainy, windy days

eaten up with worry

Waiting for a trumpet call,

    magic words upon the wall

Perhaps he never cared to know

    that all this time the sign said ‘go’