Without Their Consent

Telling people what to do without their consent

Drives ‘em all around the bend

2 grand won’t pay for the way a person feels

4 grand won’t pay for ‘em to ‘eal (heal)

Tight-lipped with no Voice and no Freedom

You may as well have left them bleeding

8 miles down there’s a horse and carriage riding

in the Underworld, that’s why it smells like shit   on  the way to freedom

There is a river and a man with bow and quiver

       taking aim, yet no arrow

nodding for justice and not begging pardon

16 miles along the road to higher learning

there’s a dip , and a ruby mist

waiting to be born on the wings

of a red-breasted meadowlark: soldier bird*

There is unharvested land where nothing is canned

and serpents await the plowing  whereupon

they go out into the fields

older than the leaves of the gingko biloba*

I sit and dream of all the four-leaf clover

it may not pay for all my pain

but sun may smile, and then again

tight-lipped freedom is no freedom at all

on the hind legs of Tatu’s* ball

© 2000 Rudolf Kurt Penner (name of blackbird, and research added April 16, 2018)

lyrics for potential song

*(Leistes militaris) Trinidadian: “soldier bird”: a black bird with a red breast. Also seen in Costa Rica, Peru, Brazil and Nicaragua (Formerly called red-breasted blackbird, but it is not a member of the red-winged blackbird family)

*gingko biloba: a type of leaf from which is made a supplement that helps clear thinking and blood circulation

*Tatu virando bola: a type of armadillo that can roll itself into an armoured ball when in danger. Native to Brazil   https://youtu.be/-x71UlnYVEU name of video:

“Tatu virando bola, Armadillo rolls into a ball – In the wild Brazil”