Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DREAM RANGE, by THOMAS MCGRATH


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DREAM RANGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When, young, I slept in a cold bed
Last Line: To hell! With life on the dream range!
Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage; Money; Sleep; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


1.

When, young, I slept in a cold bed
My sleep was classical and calm.
The fallow field, the pruned vine
The call of curlew and of kine --
These claimed and tuned my pastoral head:
I had no need for the dream range.

2.

My wife was softig and baroque,
But kept a hard board in the bed.
The burning colors of her day,
Eclipsing darkness cooled away.
Still, all that dark till I awoke,
I had the run of the dream range.

3.

From a dream of existential honey
I woke to voices crying "more!" --
Downpayments to save the nuptial manse
(From the fell clutch of low finance)
And gadgets might shame a metal whore --
And that was life on the dream range.

4.

Then Law came, like a walking turd,
Faith, Hope and Charity to divorce.
She kept the board, she kept the bed,
She kept the coldness in her head.
I paid for every loving word -- O,
To hell! with life on the dream range!


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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