It’s better to trust the birds,
That the unapproachable principal,
That to the neighbor who turns in circles,
That to the too strict tobacconist,
It’s better to trust the birds,
It’s better to think sometimes
Better than believe Saint Matthew,
Or to think we are Ponce Pilate,
It’s better to trust the birds,
That marrying a poet,
How to remove water lilies,
Better than thinking we’re Mozart,
It’s better to trust the birds.
I hear my books sob, the tears of poets on their covers,
their empty dark faces tearing to shreds, their breaths
ceased by virus's devil.
There 's a lockeddown on reason:
I run a second-hand bookstore
closed, next door liquor store and tobacconist,
open! Which is more essential, I ask in vain,
showing my rare collection of poetry. I
thought it might interest you this one is 200
years old, first edition. It doesn't pollute the air
or the lungs, nor is a cause of alcoholism, its only
vice is jealousy on the part of a novice poet.
Ah jealousy is the mother of avarice, appeal denied.
Cremation
A man was running to the tobacconist,
Bought a packet and hastily opened it took out a cigarette
Lit it and inhaled deeply.
Then his head moved backwards, and he fell and died.
They covered him on a plastic sheet but the cigarette
Was still burning, the layer took fire, cremation.
The fire spread a house was burning the fire engine came
Spayed water and the ashes of the smoker disappeared
Down a drain.
They opened the drain found some black stuff and a shoe
That might have belonged to the cremated, well it
Was something, enough for burial, and what nowadays
Is called closure.
The tobacconist took this as a sign from Good only
Sell the angel’s dust.
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