You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.
That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair
......
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
......
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
......
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-
......
Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.
I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
......
Strawberry red skies
when home beckons through sage woods
Pink love's going down
as dewdrops on purple rose
prior to the velvet close
Flowers follow me
their fantasy fragrances
recalling burnt gold
Beauty's dying once again
......
Stumbling through the door at 1 a.m., not drunk, just sleepless's bite.
My house is clouded with fog, and I return at the latest times of night.
I long for peace, careful not to make eye contact with Death.
I cry for the coach to save me from my straits, while I rise and pine to the scant love for life that's left.
The air thickens, and tensions cut my wrists.
My days expand, and I sleep without rest.
The world weighs on my chest, with past wars documented on my flesh.
Disordered mentality is cinched around my neck, but the stool I stand on is breaded with red.
......
In the small town up the road from the farm where I grew up,
the library was in the town hall,
which was also the fire station,
which was also the jail house,
and later the Plumber's place.
It was a friendly place.
The Boy Scouts met there.
They had all the Hardy Boys books.
And a hardy lot of boys, but no nooks.
......
Building a house in a foreign land has an odd sway
Common fears are again in charge of finding a space
Frequent visits of tears usually try to lead the way
And invasive thoughts dislocate reality from it's place
Time struggles to find it's own dominium
Late nights and deep dreams start a delirium
I suddenly wake up and find equilibrium
Just to find a pattern that is written with my past idioms
......
Where do we come from,
Why are we here.
Is earth really are home,
Or is it just on loan.
Evolution is the theory,
Its something i would query,
Some say the Big Bang theory,
I find that very dreary.
......