The Scarecrow

Waving grain greeting hill,

Puff lambs floating white.

Searing yellow pricking blue,

And Strawman lacking sight.

Twitter-sparrows dart and tantal,

Cacheless squirrels fight.

Clover cities leaving mantle,

On grazeland glowing white.

Staring eyes, glass-button brown,

The Strawman’s black-hole head . . .

Saddened, stiffled circus clown,

Like nearly-living Dead.

Calmly posing, manikin shape,

Strawman slowly sighs.

Buffer-tug winds dance and traip,

Poor Man knowly cries.

Broomstick bones creak and ache,

In checkerboard tablecloth shirt.

With pie-stains lying, apple with cake,

Under guard with precious dirt.

For furrowed sea envelopes Man,

Waves of worm and seed . . .

Tranquility, the flashing pan,

His life is yours indeed!

Raggedy Man always can be

Potent, moving thunder.

Scarecrow Man, name Him Andy,

Tearing crows asunder!

He stands in your favourite field.

But a lifeless corpse, He is still.

A silly Man, and mindless.

Foolish post, cat-scratched, ill,

His watch is dead and timeless.

The eyes in His head see the world . . .

Eons pass like telephone poles,

To a Tin Lizzy’s spinning wheels.

But Strawman mindless to the tolls,

Nothing and time He steals.

Jeering birds are growing bolder,

Shunning nothings said.

Now they’re sitting on His shoulder,

Next upon His head.

The time has come to pass away,

Nomad camel sphinx!

Today is now the ending day,

Yet no, the Strawman thinks.

The reign of death is falling.

The spinal cord within the Man,

Is broken by a straw.

Your Scareman shivers at the plan,

The crows begin to caw.

And the crows look just like vultures.

Waving grain greeting hill,

Puff lambs floating white.

Searing yellow pricking blue,

And Strawman lacking sight.

And He never came in from the reign.

Until the third day.

From The Stuttering Priest, 1984.