Lion Rhymes

Lion-man, take the streets

Weeping for the dust

Lion man, they read out loud

From books of gold and lust

Your cage is strong, your claws are long

And pilgrims throng the tombs

Lion-man, hear them chant

Words lost in wombs

Lion-man, shadows heave

Bolting sky through sky

For the moon is down

The sun’s a clown

And angry arrows fly

Lion-man, heed the spring

And heed the cherry tree

For the stabs they stab in guts of heart

Are ever and never to be

Lion-man, pastel hues

Touches wilt in frost

For the war he fights

On lonely nights

Is meant for the truly lost

Lion-man, you know my name

Your coat of arms has blood

For both of us had lost our oars

before it came – the flood.

Your cup of gold, they’re filling it

With poison till the brim

Lion-man, I cheer for

the drowned, as they swim.

Lion-man, you saw the child

You saw the bomb of god

But did you see Homer, blinded

by his very own nod?

Lion-man, your iron mask

Our duel wasn’t true

For water flowed like water flows

And left its traces too

And through those traces

I tracked them down –

Food for the loveless lore

For salt and chance had tricked us both

into this lonesome shore 

So now we play our games of chess

And sign our benign pacts

Lion-man, sing to me

of dreams and other facts.

And now we glide from death to death

Begging for some rain

Lion-man, his hands are full

Of all that is to remain

Lion-man, take my soul

Turn it into gold

And then I’ll know what to do

When everything else gets sold

Lion-man, the knife’s so sharp

The steel’s so cold, my fright,

Every ladder leads to snakes

Through blinding streaks of light

Lion-man, Lion-man,

The shadows sing a song

Of matter, spirit and other places

where I do not belong.

Lion-man, when the music stops

And the disease hits the stars

Hold a mirror to my face

And show to me my scars

Lion-man, clouds come home

Like birds lost in mist

Close the rivers, close the eyes

where veins & highways twist

Lion-man, this treasure-hunt

Shall toll our mad death knells

But Lion-man shall ever live

In endless fairy tales

Lion-man, he eats the clocks

He shits them out as time

And then he eats this poem of mine

pissed by the lousy rhyme.