Carpe Noctem

I looked to the sky
From my city locale
And I saw
The complaints
Of the daytime dwelling.
The noisy proprietors of
Thunderous voices had
Shouted "Carpe diem!"
Too long
And I saw that my sky was tainted.
Those voices
That shut out the dark
And propped up their sconces
Felt the day too short
And inflicted their choices
On my midnight.

They feared the challenge
Brought on by dusk's early presence.
And they were quick to shout and condemn the nocturnal actions
As evil and mischievous.
Curious creatures too mysterious and divine
To accept, the bats and owls
Were too ugly and unpleasant to approach.

I wondered if they felt small
In comparison to such vastness –
Rejecting lustrous gifts sent from
Light years away
For fear of incompatibility with an ancient and overbearing
Tao of navigation
They faded the bright lights provided already
For billions of years
And sought a thick cover of neon comforts
Like children plugging in night lights.

This failure,
This blindness,
This "seeking the light"
That rejects
A time of opportunity
And a universe of beauty
Leads to the very action
That leaves those very day dwellers in the dark
And it is what sets them behind the prospering nocturnal.

Harvest

Oh Mr. Scarecrow, just look at you,
Stuck on your stick, with nothing to do
Blessed with only one power which you must yield:
You must protect the harvest, you must keep the field.
Eying the crops within your peripheral view:
Don’t be surprised if sometimes your vision splits into two

Mr. Farmer created you in his visage.
Don’t let him down, you must pay homage.
Mr. Farmer won’t feed wild, no matter what the age;
It costs too much to feed what’s out of his cage.
With your stitched on smile and tattered old clothes,
Do your only job and scare off those vermin, scare off those crows.

The crows, they know better, they know
What you’re for;
So they spend all day destroying you more.
These tar coloured birds, pecking all day,
Piece by piece they’re removing the hay.

Oh Mr. Scarecrow, just look at you,
Stuck on your stick, with nothing to do
And still you hang, way up on your cross
You don’t mind you’re dead now, it’s all for the crops

Today you’ve done well, yes, certainly earned your pay;
So the farmer stuffs your holes with some fresh, farm-grown hay.
Next morning will come with another day:
Another day of torture, another day of decay.

You know Mr. Farmer, he made it this way:
But for every day that you die, there’s another to say,

I’ve stood here, young crops, long day after day,
All as a sacrifice for your simple way.
You can’t possibly fathom what I have to do,
Lose a bet everyday just to look after you
To let you grow tall and sway as the wind has you go,
I’m pinned up here; the burden of pain mine to know.

Then a day comes, with a new story to tell;
You look North, South and East, but every follower’s fell.
That monster, Mr. Farmer, he’s gone off to sell
Your devote little nation to downtown marketing hell.

Without your clone army, you feel empty and poor,
But can’t help notice the sprinkling of the compost floor
Seeds for the next batch, maybe one without a victim
This time you might do right, maybe this time you’ll teach them.

If they know of their demise this might make them feel sad,
But perhaps it will help them enjoy all the dead ever had.

Here’s your new culture to which you can preach,
You are the farmland closer whose only job is to teach.
Yes, every day you will die and Mr. Farmer will win,
But at least you reap the benefits for the time that you’re in.

Oh Mr. Scarecrow, I wish you could know:
The problem with the field is you reap what you sow.

Jungles in the Sky

Each plant had
four walls:
no roofs.
The ground under wheels
a recycled plastic, with
paths made of flat carpet.

No more windows
Except on the screens
- just a door-like space
made because a wall
was a bit smaller than the
other three;
and another is barely visible
because of the reincarnated trees:
the ones that grow so high even the
hawks fear to fly to the peaks;
they grow atop the fake wood veneer
of four-drawer chopping blocks.

Jungles in the sky
where each plant is exotic
(or at least in the
eye of the ant):
where the beasts roar
when rubbed the
wrong way
and only the meek
survive.