What a relief that so little matters,
Next to nothing, it seems.
It takes all the weight off this chitter chatter
And its screamingly unseemly schemes.
So I say I’ll hear out the Hatter
So long as he stays mad.
For maybe he’s found a way through the clatter
By way of his poppish pitter and patter,
Might be he found a mad way to shatter
The things he thinks to be madder.

Care for your assumptions
For they’ll take care of you.
If you’re happy being wrong,
Assumptions nicely do.

I lie about school.
I lie about friends.
I lie about my pool
And many odds and ends.

I lie about it all
And people ask me why.
It’s my one downfall,
There are so many ways to lie.

But this is how I’m wired,
I’m always honest
Just very tired.

Not a creature but a thing,
Some odd not yet dead thing
(Though likely soon to die)
That may have never known a spring,
Living autumns, working winters
In all sorts of casts and slings,
A thing of breaks and splinters,

Thrashed and splattered
Smashed and scattered
Trashed and shattered
Bashed and battered

Some things don’t get used.
This thing has no such blues.
Why’s it tattered?
Because it mattered.

Rak built her bones of feather stones
That came from steely birds.
She heaped up hope beyond the scope
Of sight and soundly words.
She claimed the land she found at hand
Among the howling toads.
She sought and seized the stranger seas
Down at the bowing roads.
The deal she made was but a trade
With what we’ll never know,
But what she gave’s beyond the brave,
Things you ought never owe.
She fought because that’s what she does
When not is not enough,
When right and wrong go right along
With fortune’s foolish bluff.
We mustn’t hold one of the bold
To such a lifeless test
As this and that, the pitter pat,
Past presently confessed.
Rak winged her way without delay
To what you may have guessed –
She let truth go long, long ago
And’s freer than the rest.

You can hide in your head
But not in your heart,
So I gave both away
And now have to start
Over again with a pen
And a spark.
I’ll put both to paper
Before going dark
And outwrite the flame
With wrinkling arcs
Till I don’t need to hide
What’s held in the heart
‘Cause all will be told
Before I depart.

Defy the ones who say how to,
Defy the ones who dare not do,
Defy you if you fear to try,
Defy myself, defy, defy.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray my Soul my Soul to keep;
If I should wake before I die,
I pray my Soul go and defy.

Hopk wished for brighter stars,
Wished on them as they fell,
She caught them and she threw
Them back up with a spell,
Wished again as they flew
Away from her as well.

She poured sun into cups,
Sipped then sent them back up
To splash the flashing stars
With this one wish of hers.

She stirred storms in her pond
And with a silver wand
Sent skyward lightning bolts
To increase starry volts.

Hopk held court with the lords
Of fireflying hordes,
Gained their trust and their wings
And flew to her star kings.

Hopk wished for brighter stars,
She wished and worked and thought
On nothing else it seemed,
She’ll never be forgot
For she’s there in the gleam
Of every wished for watt.

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.