I sit musing, ten minutes from the Jap, Six hours by sun from where my heart is, Forty-three years into the hangman's century, Half of them signed with the difficult homage Of personal existence. My candle is burning at both ends and the middle, And my halo is blazing, but I'm blind as a bat. If fortune knocks twice, no one will answer. Am going on instruments, my private weather Socked in zero zero. Sorely troubled by the need for identity And its best expression, communication. But the lights fail on the hills, the voice is lost in The night of the army, or even in death, its Big fog. When the telephone rings there's a war on each end. The message arrives, but there's no one to sign for it. No one can translate the songs of the birds or The words on the radio where the ignorant enemy Is jamming all frequencies. The need is definition of private boundaries: This hill is my heart: and these worn mountains What honor remains: this forest, what courage; Bounded by love and by need, my frontiers Extend to include you; Or the need to say: this is the word and this Its easiest meaning -- for the brave words are all now Devoured by the small souls from within: Politicos offer the embroidered noose: "See if this fits you." Needed between all men and all peoples For history to turn on the pimp and the slaver The eyes of the poor and their terrible judgment. Simple as the lover says "I am yours." But not so easy. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE SUMMER LONGINGS by DENIS FLORENCE MCCARTHY PEACE AND SHEPHERD by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD LULLABY IN BETHLEHEM by HENRY HOWARTH BASHFORD BEFORE AND AFTER by OLIVER MADOX BROWN FOUR SONGS BY WAY OF CHORUS TO A PLAY: 1. OF JEALOUSY. A DIALOGUE by THOMAS CAREW |