Miss Patti Smith: Poem

SLEEP OF THE DODO

The dodo sleeping dreaming of himself
lost in his daily doings. His wife mounted
in a menagerie of mogul extremes.
His children born and slain for sport
with nary a nod save the wind
echoing an old dance tune.

Funny squawks: coracoo, coracoo
swept by mist into the grotto
the sugar plantation. Funny beaks
bobbing the swamp's dreaming pond.
Comic bodies washed up on the craggy
shore. Funny bones then no more.

The sun hung then bled into the clouds.
God's blood shot eyes such sad surprise.
The dodo awoke and seeing them
slowly closed his own again.
Out of this world into the indistinct
memory of a line that had forgotten itself.

/patti smith

funny: the illustration looks taken STRAIGHT out of Alice in Wonderland's book.

love
alice