Deeds

Was out walking beside a field the other night
Whose field? Who knows?
But why should or would I say "whose"
As if land can belong, and yet
Doesn't it?

For the house in which I type this, contrive this
Concoct this
Has a mortgage to pay
Doesn't it?
And my house
(oh I say it was mine but really, well)
Had a rent I split
With a housemate
To a landlord--
Lord of the whole land--
A nice man with a nice yard he
Kept.

The field there reminded me
In its wild splaying reeds of
Winter-denying
Death-belying
Expansion of
A wider, gaping mouth
Whose teeth
Visible or otherwise
And grass-stained lips
Would be marked on some
Vaguely ancient parchment.
This parcel to delineate
Ownership
Has the name of
Deed
Not good not bad
But deed all the same,
Doesn't it?

In this state the States have stood
Erected as if to prove they could
From, let's be morbidly honest here
More than a drop of
Scarlet deception
Quite a whole lot more, in fact.
And we, who say
Whose is whose
And where belongs to whom
Make such fertile landfill
When all debts are paid
And the landlord comes back
For the rent,
Which starts to seems so steep,
Doesn't it?