#1249 - across the great plains

 

1249

3.vi.23

4.155

across the great plains

 

and you have to imagine the horses

why whoosh!

 

the coaches, the cauldron

axes, religion

 

strange things cannot be written

 

but dogs on the streets

so loyal, must bark  

 

how one man can make a whole country

meaner, narrower, worse

 

I’ve seen it

 

digital natives evaporate

the moment they run out of charge

 

here’s a little dance with our all paws

less violins than there were before

one man commands the tune

 

but of course the narrowness had to be there

it had to be available

 

speak the language, won’t you

that’s how we’ll know who we are

 

although the air should be enough

a little sun you’d think would do

 

haven’t we already suffered enough?

 

I mean of course the man

 

one man

and he doesn’t quite invent himself

though he’d like you to think

a kind of saviour

 

the gossip spreads

he knows when things have gone too far

 

he reminds you of another man

makes the place narrower, meaner, worse

 

each with its dog and its fence

and a man before

 

it’s the wrong done to me I must do

 

then the future is like that view you get

from the end of the train

when you the tracks run away

 

the train is on time soon to be gone

we won’t need that anymore

 

if you don’t want to be in Europe

you might have thought of it a thousand years ago

chosen some desert island instead

 

you can hear the shouting from next door

some kind of crisis

the seas all boil

 

there is a street of dogs and sturdy fences

all bark as a stranger goes by

 

all play a part

to make this man possible

the one man

see him look down from the top of the tree

 

we, who have done no wrong before

and he defends the bitter loss

 

that’s what he’s made of

says cut down a tree

and then you’ll be warmer

 

not mine of course he means

he gathers in the sheaves – mine, yours

gives them to family and friends

 

so many!

and yet these many are few

 

he speaks in a riddle of time

 

there’s a little town in his head

it’s becoming a village

 

soon we’ll burn witches again

 

soon we’ll be savage

we’ll have just arrived

 

I think you’ll know who I mean