A pirate with an eye patch
Is a frightful sight.
One day I’ll rule the waves
And must show the fight
I’ll have in me as a captain
Striking terror left and right
So none oppose
‘Cause all suppose
None are fierce as I.
So I picked a perfect patch
And strapped it ‘cross my eye
As if I’d took a blinding scratch
That shut off half the sky.
I’d never looked so fierce before,
There’d be no going back.
When you’ve got the upper hand
Attack! Attack! Attack!
So I put a patch on that high hand,
Admired it a bit,
Then patched the lower one
For a pair of fearsome mitts.
I patched my nose, my ears,
My toes and arms and knees,
By the end I’d wrapped myself
Till I was well and truly squeezed.
I’ll admit that on a ship
I’d look a little funny,
But when it comes to terror
Few are feared more than a mummy.
So I sail now for the desert
To rule the sandy waves
As a haunting mummy pirate
Who could not keep a grave.

The door was locked
The window wasn’t,
So out we went,
The daring dozens,
Free as we could wish to be,
And we’d wished hard
And we’d wished long
And we’d discard
Any silly reason
Not to be
Just as free
As Good agrees
We all should breeze
By like comets,
Uncontained by anything
That comments,
“Control yourself!”
“Not your concern!”
“Get back here!”
“Wait your turn!”
There’s no being free
Or you in part.
If your head is locked
Go through the heart.

I’ll take the rather longer way
Because I’ve noticed that the short
Gets me right to my planned out day
And keeps me from the funner sort
Of things that buck and bray and play
And bring me more than my plans may.

There was a white owl in a black stone coat
Who rowed in from dreams in a cracked bone boat
With a ringtail rat
Who sang as he sat
In key but never on note

Of the lives that were lived in the hours of sleep
That built worlds that would give all but not keep
And said to set sail
For the Isles of Tale
For there the dreaming was deep

Enough that it might yet stay out of sight,
Survive the first light ending the short night,
And then as the dawn
Glanced up with a yawn
Owl sang with rat the invite

For the crack was a fact of their bone boat,
Owl thankfully sank with hope in stone coat
But the rat swam on
Still singing their song
In key but never on note.

Wrapped with a ribbon and bow –
Who could ask for more?
That’s why I ask for less.
Give me lower than the floor!
Why take?
I’ll be taken by the mess,
Sucked down the drain
To serve as guest
In the storm and rain
Out into the stars,
Wrapped ’round the ribbon
Of this little light of ours,
Joining with the glow,
Wearing all the colors as a bow.

We’re olive and well!
Olive us are hearty, healthy, hale!
It’s olive ever wanted
To be off the tree and free to sail
Towards what we olive for,
So olive happily ever after
Once I tell you
Through greenest laughter –
Olive you!

A woodpecker all made of wood
That pecked itself alive
From in a cedar shook and stood
The sawdust off like I’ve
Yet to see birds born from a shell
Beak up and hammer down
So hard they’d ring high heaven’s bells
If ringers need be found.

They’re many ringed with knotty eyes
That see beyond the bark
Of any living thing disguised
Or hiding in the dark.
They’ve seven hearts of greenest sprouts
That flower in their chest
And make them smell of nectar housed
In fresh cut wooden nest.

Each woodpecker’s a hundred ringed
At least and more exceed
By centuries as a leaf-winged
Born seed inside a seed.
A woodpecker all made of wood
Will peck until its last
Fine splinter splits itself for good –
Rings deep as could be asked.

Illustrated by DALL-E in the style of Lyubov Popova.

He barely knows
He’s full of holes
So let’s not tell him yet.

We’ll fill him in
With butter then
Seal him with mud to set.

The tricky part
In being smart
Enough to doctor souls

Is knowing when
To fill them in
On all their many holes.

Splain would write a history book
On all that never happened.
He would take the closest look
At the myth and gobbledygook
Beyond the starts and ends.

He peered into the nothingness
And yelped, “It’s over full!”
Then began to pen as best
He could the blessed mess
Beyond us factual fools.

As he wrote he found his fate
And gave an empty shout,
“Beyond the famous Fable Gate
And the fields where lies await
This very book sits out!”

Splain claimed with sad conviction
That, “I sat and read it all.
This book was the greatest written
From the realm of fact and fiction,
Such a shame it’s staying fictional.”

I lose myself in mountains
To have them found in me,
So when I’m caught and measured
It will be tree to tree,
So though I’m a small person
I’ll be seen as the key
To life from sprout to eagle
And filling up the sea,
So none will look inside me
And sadly see a plea
For anything that’s better
Than mighty peaks would be,
So I’ll get lost in mountains
Whose only guarantee
Is wherever I then go
I’ll go with them in me.