A Different Song (day 1848)

In my time of need
When I was growing strong
How could you say I was all wrong?
As I walked up to you
To ask a favor from
How could you sing a different song?

Like a feather that lives so long
Along the beak of a strong song
You were wisdom that we all needed
This last song to gather seed.

As I whispered to my friends
That we had stumbled upon truth
How could you yell upon your lungs
What we had already sent away
And claim it for your very own
Brought home as our one deluded messiah

Like a feather that lives so long
Along the beak of a strong song
You were wisdom that we all needed
This last song to gather seed.

I had two ounces in my pocket
You had traded me for my soul
Which I now carried forever more
Saying I was free in every deed
And on my lasting journey home,
So locked in your greedy empire I,
It was all unfaithful truth and a silenced song.

Like a feather that lives so long
Along the beak of a strong song
You were wisdom that we all needed
This last song to gather seed.

A Different Song by Ned Tobin

Fresh Hay (day 1847)

I wandered into an empty barn, and couldn’t figure out why the hay still smelt fresh. My eyes adjusted with a twinkling daylight filtering in through cracks in the wooden walls, dust that may have once been settled was caught suspended in the beams of light and my eyes scanned the well worn floor, distracted by the antique tools laying about as if still in use. How could I know what had come here before? How could, with a flash like a blink, memories flicker through my vision as if my transistor radio had suddenly happened upon a past I knew well?

Tracing Blurry Lines (day 1844)

My eyes have become the blurry vision
Of what they once used to see,
Fading sunlight in a white-washed
Washing machine.
The deck has become stained
With forgotten footsteps,
Leaving only smears
As marks on my mind.
And I delicately touch rough bark
Encircling our plum tree,
Tracing lines from hither to tither
Like the vision I once used to see.

Tracing Blurry Lines by Ned Tobin

Ode to a Small Rabbit (day 1842)

You there, bouncing everywhere,
What alerts you, I’m sorry I’ve scared.
Bounce away, hop along
I am not here to cause you wrong
I am just a passing stranger
Who lives across the way.
These are the plants that I have sown
This is the grass that tickles my toes
And now, see here, we both can share
Bounding here and there and everywhere.

Slender Daggers (day 1841)

I want a girl who wears black eye liner
As thick as her lipstick, black.
Who wears emotional sleeves in
Long, slender daggers
Piercing my emotional state
With a heart so green
I have a hard time understanding
Where my ideas have gone
In a heart, forever long
And edging ever closer to my slender daggers.

Sweat Tea (day 1840)

Into my sweet tea
I felt there was an empty spoon
And you came along so soft
To help me with my sugar,
And here your golden laughter
Took a shining to my smile –
A power I was helpless to,
A Queen in a beggars hand.
And if my sorrow had a strength
It would be a sweetened song,
It would be so round it had no edge
And sugar would be my pun
For my sweet tea is clearly running low
And my spoon has turned to fun.

Sweet Tea by Ned Tobin

News (day 1839)

I asked you in an earnest voice
If the weather had been nice –
A windowless entrance into your mind
A sunset in the sky.
And your sunglasses gave you away
On this sunny side of our street
Where I ventured just one other guess
As to where your lover had been lately.
To which you looked the other way
And left me holding onto your
Glass purse now splayed on the floor.
A prison I could only guess,
As I collected quite the mess
In shadows and eye liner pens.
So I turned back into my coffee
That was more straight then you did seem
To let her cursing steam away
And the news was getting cold.

News by Ned Tobin