An angel came to visit

This angel came to visit

Like to Abou Ben Adhem
I wish I was like him
I hope I am like him
I hope I am like him.

An angel came to visit

I gave him ladders

As he had lost his wings

For he gathered, that I gathered

Feathers and other things.

I said that when the wind blows
I make pillows
And these days sometimes duvets

And he said oh, oh,

You see the chiefs need them for their headdress
Not these common bedrests

And at this address we guessed

We'd find them all piled in a mess
I said, yes, yes,
I have a long to do list.

1. Abou Ben Adhem

Play silver flute

When the magic people, pixie folk

Take fright in nightmares

Peep from behind the flowerstems in fear
Play them flute. Lips to silver cane

See how light sounds touch upon the evening air
As sweet notes open flower cups
Lullaby the magic folk

Till beddy byes, beddy byes
Calls and strokes their smokey eyes.
Dreamcasting they will dance the broad stiff

Flowerstems, hand in hand in rings
Singing of the garden sweet
Its mossy mounds and moist dark nooks
Its spreading fronds so pungent.
Where the water falls in drips
From the lip of a broken pipe

They will play music on the stocks and tulips
In revelry through raucous night.
Take flight above the pretty blooms
Beating wings a blur, till buds closed, blossom

Petals a tremble vibrate delicate like glass
Resonate in harmony with silver flute's long gasps.

Put your lips to the flute and trust
Magic folk will make their fear art, order at the edge of chaos
And flourish.

The first flush is lost

The first flush of Darjeeling is lost
The Clippers, scaffolds, as stirrups, swift
The fastest and first, the fattest profits. Cutty
Sark
The asparagus is lost
And all the delicate crops of spring
Gone rotten in this distancing
One day the peppercorns will fail
Glass houses in the trees
Ice caps upon the mountaintops
The monsoon. The pipelines

The first flush of Darjeeling is lost

All to dust
Hands cupped to higher powers

Have you been at prayer these weeks
Have you been delivered

Will we be delivered?
In brick caskets, data in a matrix
They will not wash.
Out, out, damn spot
They will not wash.
And when the sprouts spring again
Will the rains come?
Last year there was no rain.

The first flush of Darjeeling is lost
The last sinews of pettifrocks and pith in Africa
The orangeries have escaped
The exotica is alive
Yellow Mountain is turning green
And the Emperor will die of thirst.

Clouds

Those clouds spreading tears
Wanting thunder
Misunderstand
Weeks of parched blue sky
When the air is clear, still, dry.
This is what brings thunder.

Nothing free about markets

There is nothing free about markets
you pay a price
For good, a service, device
Or its called a gift or a theft.
You sell, what you say you are selling
Or they'll be screaming and yelling
As it goes by the name of fraud.
Contracts and laws, predictable rewards
Brought us out of piratical darkness
But there is nothing free about markets.