Tenuous ties binding the mind

to places by madness unmarred

where order is easy to find

and marbles are kept safe in jars

          But when marbles escape,

mad men start to Dream awake

of gallows humor, of shadowed kings,

of crowing ravens, of fickle wings

          First, we Dream of tortured Poet

retching jagged verses, wordless,

but for the smattering of thoughts

that scattering imagination caught-

          “This rant of mine, my phantom rhyme

A comment on the pantomime

An infatuation with words

An overwrought work of lies

Prose never thought the poets prize

Coming from the whole of me

the soul of me, this hole in me”

          -To the Trickster these thoughts trickle

though Tricksters think nothing of poets

their trick is to think hardly at all-

          “There once was a man from Glasgow

Who talked his way up the gallows

He told the hangman a joke

The hangman just makes spoke

‘Now’s really not the time’”

          -Then we Dream of poets patron;

Morpheus, King of Sleep and After;

dreamless, wakeless, watching

sleeping though He has to-

          “The celestials duel when twilight rules

Shadows drawn long to thread

Woven to a tapestry

That shows the king is dead

The king of dreams, of shadowed things

Whose corpse flies through your head

And when you dream of raven's wing

You’ll know the king is dead”

          -But of ravens The Trickster knows best, 

The King of Dreams is a Drama Queen

He would say it in jest-

          “‘Irony!’ Crowed the raven

‘Alliteration!’ Argued the albatross

‘Onomatopoeia.’ Pronounced the parrot

‘Irony!’ Crowed the raven

They’ve been at it for hours.”

          -In the mad Dream unending

Muse plagues the mortal fools

whose minds are in need of mending-

          “Every night, the clevery kite

Says clever little things

Out of sight and cleverly trite

Flitting by on fickle wings

Fickle wings of dreams and things

Of Truth wrung from broken bodies

Of Truth; wronged unspoken follies

While clever little whispers breath

Lord, what fools these mortals be

To cut their teeth on dreams and death”

          -Though less of mind and more of mouth

as Tricksters tend to be,

the Trickster’s joke, which he spoke

was on the Muse’ inferiority-

          “Whether we weather with her,

Or we wither together

witness now my wit and prowess

Untouched by muse’s clever powers-

The harmless unarmed man disarmed

The armless army man

-Armed with harmful armaments-

Unharmed but for lack of arms”

          -while it could be taken furiously

a light heart was the Trickster’s aim

to stop dreams taken too seriously

lest madness become a pain