In that tangle of poppies you can see an old world toon
At war with some enemy unseen in the mist.
He grasps a thin green spear and glowers.
As if beyond the water of quackers he has always
Wandered the world at large, sweating in the high
Swaying and uncut grain stalks and dashing
Off at the sound of the thresher like any other
Lonely voice with sore soles. He scrabbles up the wet
Rock face and shouts, throatweary and blackbrushed.
“Ha” but it comes out “Kah”
But now he’s holding his ground. He’s turned
On the artist and finds himself fooled yet again,
Erased to the neck, helpless against all these greater powers.
He clings to a poppy stem. Imagines so hard that he
Becomes crow and black and cherry and orange,
Rhino and treelines and poppy bursts bright as sunsets.
