The Hempstock mice know all
all that is good
and all that is bad
and all that is too horrible to be known
they are the oldest of the old
they come from a place before
the place of nothing
and the time before
the beginning of the first time before
and if you believe the rumors
or if you don’t believe the rumors
they will be here long after
the last time of all

They have traveled the abyss
and set sail in and charted the void
they can gnaw through time and space
and reality is nothing
they cannot bend
or turn
or rearrange
or extinguish with just a thought

Let us be thankful
that they are animals of kindness
creatures of wisdom
spirits of love
and mice that believe in forgiveness

Their paws are hands that craft things
all things
from the first heart of the first star
to the black feathers
of the first raven and crow
they will craft the quill and the ink
that will write last word
of the last story to ever be told

They named the gods
that named your parents
that named you
and painted the names
of tomorrows children
in the heart of yesterdays dreams

They have seen the end
since before the beginning
and when nothing comes back
they will swallow

Time

and

Dream

and

Life

and keep them safe in their belly
and gnaw through to new beginnings
and their paws will be busy hands
crafting things
all things
and when they have made
the universe comfortable once more
they will let us fall
from the belly of their womb
and we will be the children of tomorrow
born from the heart of yesterday

Oldest of the old
wisest of the wise
kindest of the kind

Mice of all mice
mothers and fathers
of love and forgiveness

The Hempstock Mice

Why do ye fight, ye little men,
that strut like ***** afore their hens?
Religion, pride or avarice -
are all wars fought because of this?

So near are ye unto the ground
ye see so little, hear no sound
save childish voices, raised in hate,
as ye proclaim some new estate.

Whilst far beyond this lonely world,
in splendour ‘midst the clouds unfurled,
an angel sadly shakes his head
as new born babes replace the dead.

For men learn little, so it seems,
however long their span of dreams;
On heaven’s maps drawn high above
there are no borders, only love.

Long before memory clouded it
when I knew when and was new to it
and I couldn't get quite enough of it
but
now can't remember a bit of it.

It's
like a tax on the things that were good for me
a surcharge,
I'd call it hypocrisy,
can't see those things that I used to see
and I don't think this can be democracy.

Dice that swing in the window
and a car that looked the business
we were invincible,
terrible drivers,
but then we were young and
an excuse we hung on to for
as long as we could.

Cortina
you mean a
lot to me
Cortina
I couldn't wait to see
how fast and how far you would go
but then I did it
subsequently I know

Cortina
you were a dream a
long long time ago
then I had to go and grow
got myself a bit older and
now I'm getting slow

I'll get a Smart car
an old **** car
it'll take me far away from here
and I might get to see her
one more time

Cortina.

When I flip and skip a word or jumble lines
that become the sum of what I do
it doesn't bother me
it's only my pretence at poetry and who cares anyway?
Shakespeare?
no dear
he's long gone along with Shelley, Keats and John Donne,

I feel at times alone
like the lines don't want me and
I roam
abroad.

In Dubrovnik with a beatnik or
on the Rhone or the Rhine
I feel at home
I feel fine, in
Sierra Leone sometime alone
but mostly with friends.

I'm going to keep on skipping
keeping on ripping the
words into shreds
making some beds to
lay upon
until
I am gone.

next.