Cess scratched himself
But before he could pout
Not blood but mud came rolling out.
This made him sweat
A treeful of sap
Which couldn’t help but make him fret.
In fact, it made him cry,
Honey spilled from greenest eyes.
Did his heart pump from puddles?
Had he grown roots and leaves?
Was his brain all full of bees?
Cess still worked fine.
He stopped cryin’,
Patched his scratch with sap
And sipped his self-made sweets.
This mud, too, was a treat,
He could make a gorgeous mess,
You can make anything from mud,
The proof was in young Cess.

You call it a haircut.
Hairs call it a peoplecut.
And once they’re free
They fly, they flee
Till each hair grows
A you or me.

Given a choice between kind and clever
I’d choose kind
And swear off clever forever.

But sometimes I must remind
Myself that my mind
Runs hot and blind
And forgets itself
And all else
And rambles on,
It’s gold and gone.

But when I remember
To make a choice
I try to choose the kinder voice.

I take my vitamins every day,
The best, the vital ones, I should say,
They’ll make me healthy and quite strong,
I forage for them all day long –

Reddish pebbles,
Sips from puddles,
A twist of bark,
A purple spark,
An old shoe sole,
What’s down this hole,
Pre-chewed gum,
Colorful scum,
This moldy dough,
A long lost toe,
Cigarette butts
And who-knows-whats.

I have to take my vitamins quick!
Because I always feel so sick.

Kings wear their crowns
So we know to call them king,
‘Cause they know they and us
Are the same same thing,
And it’s clear when the crown is doffed
“I’m better than you” is also off.

Koospy was looking for Adventure.

He got up out of bed
Every single day and said
While peering out his window,
“I’ll start this day tomorrow.”
Instead of walking out his door
He’d wait maybe a moment more,
Or a month, or a life, or, or, or,
He’d best get back to bed before
He couldn’t anymore.

So when he woke
Somehow his window broke.
I shredded to threads
That comfy bed,
Knocked down his door
In one quick stroke,
His whole house went up in smoke!
Koospy said as he departed,
“At long last it’s finally started.”

I call myself Adventure
And I’m an ornery cuss.
Right now’s the only moment,
I’ll find you if I must.

For those who wish to teach me
Any lesson, big or small –
I’ll learn the hard way or not at all.

The ship was built with planks of ice
So it’s no different from the sea,
Plank on plank of glaciers sliced
To raise a craft same as the sea,
To raise a craft as leaf to tree,
To better know the oversea.

Its sails were storms that whipped and wailed,
No doldrums deadened life on deck,
It caught its wind and on it sailed,
Beneath a blue flag unbedecked,
Beneath a saintly fire she trekked
Above so many other wrecks.

Whatever treasure she might hold
Is not worth the debt you’d owe,
Yet many come for unknown gold,
They let their mighty cannons go,
All shoot high when they should shoot low
And the sea swallows them all whole.

Forget forgiveness if you sink
At the wish of an angered sea,
Dive deep and deeply take the drink,
Serve your last master merrily,
Serve on the crew as leaf to tree
Beneath the blue flag of the sea.

All things leave a ghost
So I say why fear
When they are, at most,
Not all here.

Enjoy the ghost of rain
Without the wet,
Long fallen mountains
Still standing yet,
The first words you spoke,
Every nightly dream,
The moment you woke,
All else you deem
Unworthy of a memory
Goes on itself remembering.

So too this poem now passes on
To haunt as planned all along.

Lillip never got past
The right of the rocks to cast
Their first stones
At her old bones
And now she’s fallen to last.

Krikik jumps at the chance
To find that one wish that grants
All of the joy
That one grown up boy
Could claim of happenstance.

Snipit will laugh at it all
If he’s ever so lucky to fall
Into the minds
Of all those behind
Him marching his way to a wall.

Every one of us did, do and will
Clamber up similar hills
And fall down
And roll around
In the mud until, until