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I wrote this
more than three decades ago as a 24 year old. Some of the
allusions lie in their own kind of perdition, but parts still strike me. |
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JOURNEY |
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The last firm hold is shaken
Broke by determination . . .
Castaway
In contrition, perdition I
Slip down the spine of the hemisphere
Jump one of twin contours
To land among behemoths feeding
Behind tattered barricades
On rainchoked coastal soil.
Hours spurt by. I skirt
A shrieking soulpit, slope
Up wearing hillsides descend
Through mill towns, the coal towns |
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And overnight into whitefenced fog
Fall to humid breath of the midland
Crossing four bargewide water works
Culminated by the sluggish divide
The ugly muddy symbol--
And West.
After the valley baby mountains
Play with the highway
Tilt it, twirl it, hide it
Until the toy is taken
By an encompassing plains |
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Comes then another morning
Churches spill for dinner,
Good people, God possessed
Broadcast their A.M. love |
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As
I, only by stubborn will
Stop for an infrequent gas fill:
"From nearby?" Negation
Behind a Cokecan in a voice
Unused for speaking.
"Town sucks, no girls,"
His pimpleface receding
With my folded bills |
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Into the wind, the prairie wind;
Giant grainbins clustermark
County seats placed half an hour
Apart across the high afternoon.
Into the storm, prairie storm
That scourges an empty land
Abates at the violet dusk . . .
Last light outlines Them,
Watchful.
From a final hill the city
Sputters sparks the night
Ends abrupt--
This is home. Home? |
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Colorado
Springs
September, 1971 |
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