The Cage Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

It starts with school railings
That's where fear starts
Not with nailing to a metier cross
Beware, my child, upward straining spears,
corralling your whirling
Horses of hope aimed at heaven

But somehow we miss the point,
down the years, avoiding the tricycle
In the hall, drifting
with spindrift friends from bar to bar
The careless lookout for Nirvana
You end up marvelling at a bouquet
Of close-up angers
As red as storms on Mars.

Not caring about who is in pain or the
Wreckage of a passing train
The sun will always awaken
His red ragged horde
Skinned rabbit slivers scattered overhead
And then play an ace, a blue sky
sent to torment you with the thin sound
Of distant childrens' laughter
As you walk in the shadow
Of those thick black bars.

Now is the time to set yourself free
To feel moondust between your toes
To have a bypass in your head
Belong to a more primitive nation
Go on a vacation with an idea
that you can sit on your shoulder,
Soon, you will nurse a cageful
of prowling thoughts
Then do like Superman,
and with your eyes
Move that boulder.