Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,

Outlandish as double-****** camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.

Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week.
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.

What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.

"I only cry over things that aren't real,"
she says with a soft frown
"It's the only thing that I feel
I relate to more than reality."

I nod and watch the wall
"It seems whenever I need to cry
Nothing comes at all
and all my strength is gone."

she smiles and speaks
"I find I cry to easily
and my laugh is always weak
And not as frequent."

I fiddle with my knife
"I laugh to much, and at the wrong times
but can't cry to save a life
even when I want to."

here I sit
again
as the radio announcer
says, "for the next
3 hours we will be listening
to a selection of?"

it's now eleven p.m.
I've listened to this man's
voice
for many many years.
he must be getting quite
old.
his station plays the best
classical
music.

I don't recall how many
women I have lived with
while listening to that
announcer,
or
how many cars I've
owned
or how many places I've
lived in.

now each time I hear his
voice I think, well, he's still
alive, he sounds good
but the poor fellow must be
getting very old.

some day
he'll have his funeral,
a little trail of cars
following
the hearse.

and then
there'll be
a new voice
to listen to.

he must be very old now,
that fellow,
and every time I hear his voice
again
I pour a tall one
to salute him
happy that he's made it
for one more
night
along with me.

it
takes
a lot of
desperation
dissatisfaction
and
disillusion
to
write
a
few
good
poems.
it's not
for
everybody
either to
write
it
or even to
read
it.