the goatherd's crooked staff

Tuesday Lobsang Rampa made
tea so his Third Eye could open
to see dreams fortifying in aspiring hearts
as they reach for the next beat in their comings and goings

Socrates played the lyre by
banging on the strings while
humming and hawing about the trouble of
always stressing and straining against the chains
though he loved Phaedrus in the Symposium
it was Xanthippe that made him a muse

Hermann Hesse spoke in tongues
while translating the synapses of a goatherd
who arranged new ideas like glass beads
which almost always came undone
except when Siddartha played the lute
in exchange for his crooked staff

Nietzsche saw the cunning linguist
would never solve the puzzle of the dead body
which Zarathustra carried to his bed like a wolf
where he lay dying of syphilis wrapped
in the wool of many sleeping sheep

for many restless nights they looked up at the
stars in the same Elysian fields where
the goatherd lay asleep
dreaming