A CHAIR IN THE SKY

But now--Manhattan holds me
To a chair in the sky
With the bird in my ears
And boats in my eyes
Going by

Joni Mitchell -  A Chair in the Sky from her 1979 Mingus album

**

I break cleanly through the dream
gasping for morning
"Well, hello there!" smiles the newest day

I still had memories
clasped in my hand
but they lost their lustre  in the light

"Glad to have you back with us!"
shouted the room a little too loudly
and the furniture agreed wholeheartedly

they needed a human
to give them a purpose
otherwise they were just pieces of wood

sunlight grovelled
fawning at my feet
licking the tips of my toes

the window had arranged
trees and flowers and fields
to prove the existence of a world

the curtains breathed in then
out again
the lungs of the room

I gathered myself together
put on my Past...searching for my Present
"Now where did I put my Future?"

"Read me...read me!"
a dog-eared book demanded
barking page 69 all the time

"Shut it!" I told it
shutting it
it falling silent

soon the morning came
fully into being
"How do you do?" it enquired politely

"Fine..." I lied "Fine!"
now where the hell
did I leave my mind

I found it under
some dried up dreams
that had escaped from sleep

my mind was a little rusty
but still worked
even if a little slowly

"Ok...ok!" shouted the day
"Let's get this
existence on the road!"

"Do you have to shout..?" I moaned
"No..." it whispered
"...but can we get on with it!"

Reality is...I thought
a foreign country
they do things differently there.