Wanted dead or alive

 About the birds

The hollow man

Holds open his hand

And the sand falls

Ah where have I been in the blood filled night

Feasting on, drinking on blood

Organic in a panic

A feeding frenzy

This bottled cure

This open door

Called life

Slitting the gullet

Of the quivering mullet

Who freely swims

Free form

Catching waves and spears heads of the braves

In my teeth

And teaching the tides

Too brief

About time, and time's reef

Where corals and shoals

of Elephantine fish

Wade and wander

Like Hercules after

His epic battle

In the deeps

And sure though I would hunger for a rooted rubber

To erase the mistakes

But all is nothing

Bar the Aspen shake

And I awake from a dream

Where have I been

I woke up, I was dead

I climbed out of my grave

Why is everyone looking at me

Like that?

I reached up from the moist grave

The cold grave

I believe in the Spring

That all grows green

I believe the song birds sing

And tired arms swing

Eyes that were closed will open

And the egg that was whole

Will soon be broken

Where have I been?

Underground

My flesh is hanging from my bones

This thing called life still

Clings to me

Is not contained in the body

Though the body needs its feed

The spirit cries out and bleeds

If blood is life

I have lost mine

Yet still I live

Or hunger to live

Am I dead

Or is in wanting to live

The desire to be alive

Life

In that case even the dead can live

If they want it hard enough

Am I wanted dead or alive

Oh to be wanted

By a thing

A beast

A stranger

A hunter

Or a prey 

Who wants to be hunted

It is the wanting that matters