The Kettle’s On

Cypress, lead, and elm
Your lock three feet four feet eight feet four
Anyway–have you heard the dust
Scratching your name
Whilst the birds are sweetly singing?

Suspect the stars will eat your name?
Draw jokes on doom of planets
Whilst the birds are slowly singing

Whilst you shine cats in the snow
Through my windowcrack they swirl
And the light is bright around their paws
At the rest of bed they sleep
And the light is bright around their eyes
And they soar on kitten wings lidless
And their joy is bright light in heart
Did I glimpse messiah seeking donkey?
When the knife born near my heart
Behind polite kindness king
Cain moves our jaws
Cain is tongue in our mouth
Our hands stretch link with cain's tendons
And behind the skin covering slow bones
Is the mask and mark of abel's brother
By all the rivers we shall doze
Dust storm and bone storm
Twilit skies the birds are sadly singing

For hopeless queen and hopeless king
The kettle's on and our work is done
Burn those horsies
And the flaming horsies will
Flick past your eyes
And fear God
In the house of thousand of bones
Which there a thousand witches
Know as their home
Seven gates and a thousand witches
In every nook
Lay down for your appointed time
And hear the birdsong singing

And see the birds sing
Being you to me
And sing me your name
Prophet–prophetess–
And a thousand witches
Rise for you in the red house
In the red barn they sing
And the birds are surely singing

In the night the children sing
In the market square the girl is dead
And by the fair the fair boy is dead
And the birds are slowly singing

By my head is writing
In me and through me
And in my head the plain is burning
Softly sweetly sing the birds

There's flame in the trees
And fire in the salt