Ideas and Lyrics

Foolish camels eyeing needles,
Seeing themselves inside the names,

Refugees from the desert wastes,
Determined to get past the glint.

From the far side, where the readers
And performers embroider hours,

The delight is in the needle
That can elaborate small words,

But not once there’s some useless gunk
Already stuck inside the eye.

Camels are lumbering creatures,
Terrific for transportation,

Excellent for traversing blanks,
For conveying goods through hot sands.

Camels are for making rich men,
Connecting civilizations,

Good sources for figures of speech.
They carry; they are not carried.

They don’t get to sleep in the tent,
Slip through the purely pretty tools

Of emotional filigree.
Camels are not infinitely

Compressible. Somewhat sponge-like,
True, but they’ll die if too condensed.

A needle’s for stitching samplers,
Which do pretend to carry weight,

But there’s no actual camel
From any slender, dancing thread,

And, if you were to humor one,
You’d stitch a cicatrice like this.