Open Road and other poems

Open Road

What if God was only a tall, tall man

who gave us a first idea of ourselves

And left the scene with another man

a very long time ago;

Just another George, or another Sam?

Or, heaven knows,

A Judy?

And the only overarching Plan there ever was

came down to you and me:

An open road

and a many-headed journey?

Who am I

at three a.m.

I'd like to know, breathing mist

upon a cold and unreflecting window?

Looking out at nothing.

I am my own religion now;

my own confusion and philosophy.

I live for making poems,

and would hear a heart sing.

Maybe my own, God forbid.

(So selfish of me.)

As far as I can tell,

this is the barest truth of things:

We speculate around the bend

what no one really knows.

And if we cannot make ourselves believe

one or another very important thing,

We pretend,

and put ourselves to bed unnecessarily guilty.

Ah, my boys and girls,

don't you see:

There are only straight and narrow Rules.

Why,

Even the very wind must curl

itself around a tree.

(from Uncollected Poems)

The Chapel

The kindness of the chapel's grin
almost invites a curious traveler in.

The stained-glass eye on verge of tears
says, "Amen, amen," at passers-near

Like passing off a kind hello
that busy people never hear.

A friend to everyone, I hear; and still
a singer of hymns, a prayer of prayers.

A kind old uncle with a hat:
that's the kind of chapel I like looking at.

A sidewalk wide enough for all to talk
and disagree, the way a parson parts his hair.

I like that.

But the organ groans too much of sin
as if it's leaning in the wind.

The paint is cracked and white-washed thin,
but a lived-in house with a welcome mat

Rolled out flat for stomping-in
of every stray cat, tramp, and next-of-kin,

Cannot be all bad now, can it, Jim?
No, not all bad.  Not all bad.

But don't tell that to them.

(from Uncollected Poems)

The Air is Full of Memory

I have been one

to contemplate a thing made

brighter than any sun.

Just there,

between the molecular cracks

of someone else's oxygen.

You see,

I have already lately fathomed

what these two precious blue

eyes lost in years of graying after

someone else's heaven.

I am almost certain

this must say something charming about me

no one will yet dare to deny

or to confirm:

That where one day's effort

faltered,

you could say I stumbled once

Upon.

And now the Road holds open promise

where my Roman feet have wandered;

turning West

where every New World word is pregnant as an egg

and my tongue is thick with dust

of yellow European yesterdays

and marrow on marrow of tomorrow's African

cinnamon dawns and saffron dusks; it burns

in contemplation of a simple moment's

contribution made Immortal.

It IS.

My body but yearns for a home and a bed.

But sleeping blinks away the poem

...lived.

(from Uncollected Poems)

This Moment Also

In putting wings upon the air
I am convinced and well pleased
with these Creations
of My Mind Also;

That if what lives, lives on
then so, too, the earnest prayer
of This too-dazzling-to-believe-is-real and rare
rosy gem of Time, This
Moment Also.

Even dead
the falling bud of every memory tipped and spilt
is equally red:
it burns itself into the ground
like any seed.
It makes a bed.

I like to look inside and down upon
wherever I have bled and laid one, just to say:
I lived there.
Me!
And there,

There,
I Live On.

(from Uncollected Poems)

Delirious

One by one, the days

like dominoes

lean upon the sweating shoulders of those

still standing;

 clones

almost to a man of them;

a thin brigade of toppled bones

and what is left of a march of dots

against uncertain endings;

comrades

left behind to follow after,

some uncertain line of them ahead;

diary pages blowing in the wind;

and poor planning

is the lame excuse of every man.

How curious,

 the way a shouldered rifle

seems to bend;

the driving design of falling forward;

the dead weight of an only friend.

Ah, but this is not the end,

for we have made ourselves a promise:

Defend, we said, the dreams of fathers

and of prophets.

If I could,

I would drink straight from their faucets.

(from Uncollected Poems)