The Battle I've Won

In the pine grove the golden finch has told me a yarn,
He sits with his face hidden in his nest so warm,
And I know I’m crazy to be here in this equation,
But I’ve got to march slowly in the battle I’ve won.

And this culture has fallen like a stamp in the mud,
And this rapture of season has come on like a flood --
I’m incensed and fragile against all that goes on,
And I’ve held on too firmly to say that I’ve won.

There’s a market in the park that sets up at dawn,
And a casino sign flashing a man with a baton,
In the churches the prayers all weighing a ton,
And there can be no supper until the last soul is won.

I feel like a rug a whole army trampled upon,
Their boots blistered with a burden as light as the sun,
Their hearts as awake as an administrative yawn –-
Being beaten this way is the only battle I’ve won.

There’s a war tearing through the old graveyard,
There’s fighting in the firelight that licks the poulard,
Bombarding and pounding au bout de son,
And I’ll know in my last breath if the battle I’ve won.

The Afternoon Tune

I lost my heart or my heart lost me,
Beat its way through the day and out to sea –

The foxglove rolling like carillon bells
And the silver sky roving with little cells.

Of course the clouds lift up their pantaloons
For the building knells of the afternoon

And the banking pipers like waving wipers,
Use their motors like rising roller coasters.

I met man in a linen suit
Who touched his cane to his Hessian boot;

He followed me like a yellow chick
Even though the briar was thick.

I scooped up a cup of flower fluff
And made a tea that tasted rough.

He said he had to wonder
Why I was pulling him under.

This is not the same day
That leaves the water filled with gray.

This is not the simple room
That feels like silent tomb.

The crust of the bread
Into which I bleed.

I lost my heart on pungent day.
It carried me away.
It asked me to stay.

Silver Thread

I was walking on shoes of lead,
Holding my silver thread --

With cardinals all around me
In the pewter trees;
With zeppelins floating slowly
Over the silver seas.

Oh thread, I sang as I said,
The world down below us
Is cold and dead.

The woman at her washtub,
With smoke in her head,
The orphan at the wheel hub,
Into his grave he’ll descend,

And all the stars in my bed –
And all the curtains to mend.

So I sent my silver thread
Into the gray north wind,
And it went whirling, whirling
Wildly, across the houses of tin.

Curling, curling through the smokestacks,
Choking the children who felll asleep
Embracing the wolf pack
That spares all the sheep.

And here I stand in my shoes of lead,
In my lonely citadel above the bay,
Watching the cardinals fly away,
Away into the rages of the day,
Holding my silver thread.