It weren’t so bad to be a mouse;
The life was small, but so were we.
Our highest cares were crumbs and tea
(Which ain’t too scarce in a manor house).
A fine life! Nibble, nuzzle, be
Just nimble enough to ‘scape the broom,
Just glad enough to ‘scape the gloom,
Just free enough to know ye’r free.
And sure, a humble life. Why not?
When “ostentation” meant ye wore
Yer whiskers curled, or oiled yer fur,
Or weren’t well-pleased with what ye’d got.
Aye, what we’d got weren’t much, it’s true.
Ye’d call us poor – but poor’s no vice,
And poverty’s enough for mice;
It does us, or we make it do.
The night sky was an orange cliché where silly
men in standard manly boots strut sideways into
the gasping sunset – tired of their stubble and
hoping for another scene to capture the faux visionary
mind. He steps on the smoked cigarette and looks
into his splotchy horse’s blank eyes. Where are we
goin? he asks. Neigh of course is all the
splotched polka-dotted horse replies. Horse speak for
everything and nothing. He places his spit-laden
boot in the cracked stirrup and puts all his weight
into it – just to aggravate. The horse bucks –
2 can play at that game. Again he tries to
make the horse his servant – and the horse knows
who’s stronger. Flat on his sun burned back he
fool that I was
I thought the word heart means
a raw answer to my mind
a cook’s shop
an infinite field
like a kind of void
with only a pair
of black horses
I broke the other
within myself
the expected
story of a boy
a near horse
a fear horse
but there was no hurt
in talking
I touch nothing but myself
my hands rich in fur
by and by my past meets me
in a dream of horses
to whom I am
some troll-like acquaintance
I sing to myself
rather than go home
with grief
o my war horse
the way turned
into more convenience
day-hunting owl
an apple sun for a horse
in bull weather
we are mistaken for horses
deep as drunken scholars
in the grass
enough for all
the conversation that lives
I leave my key
secure in the lock
and my hired horse out
in the field
day and night
come anew to sing
oh friend stay and lodge
as soon as the sand
which I carry to bed
in one tear
walking in the desert
I turn thin
night comes as a horse
as a cross
as the day’s black dress
our aches are all made
of tomorrow
are without prophecy
nothing but ruin
can come to the rose
or the horse race
days pass
only in a book
that left out my name
my body is like a desert
in the rain
the dead river raised up
and broke out of a full bed
to run with horses
and find a better bed to sleep in