The Strander at the Gates
I thought:
The Method, so happily recovered.
Iam the one who called us all together.
I driven time
I wars and waves
I was
I go over sea-lanes rife with fish
I did not.
I saw a shadow on the water.
I know this situation makes a perfect poem,
but I will not.
I want to write that I’ve already been to Jupiter,
but I have not,
or that Catholicism died in the darkness
of the already dark ages.
I a man mountain, a level island.
I a side-road.
I a dead toad on the side-road,
can only say what I’ve seen with my own eyes.
The heart inside us shakes
aswirl with evil.
I the eye in the wading pool
bathed in shame.
I sing for our time too.
I planned to follow all the “I’s”
I could find.
I ahaze.
Not even the geese could make their way.
I sit down on the curb and wait.
Listen.
I loved him.
Our hour sat and sulked
but I a second hand
did not budge.
I an automobile.
I a blast furnace ensnared.
I a home like all the others in my neighborhood.
I at some other century
imaginary love affair
with heifers and others
left like a stranded hair.
I told you
I’d tell your story
if you just let me tell it.
I an embellishment
before the roads of the world grew dark.
I a moon making its way round.
I hate a metaphor.
I pissed on the sidewalk.
I did not.
I heard her heartbeat fifteen times
before she was born.
I a final glow of antiquity.
I “a method of exhaustion.”
I felt her bare foot from the inside.
I streak the administration.
I bare myself too,
my breast to the moon
making its way round.
I resent you
who I serve.
I said I would say
what you want
but say it my way.
I a television, a television.
I a giant model heart
touring the city-state
before slaves
in the birthplace
the cradle, etc..
I a swallow in your sight
loosed the sack and all the winds blew past.
I dolled out my time
and money.
I was broke before
the reformation
the resurrection
and the restoration.
I a heathendom.
I a saintdom.
I a polka dot.
I cock-of-the-walk
cocksure, yelping
put beeswax in my ears.
I a dog in obedience class
who can no longer hear.
I say what you want me to say.
I say how brave.
I say how clever.
I say how we went together
happily.
How you loved me.
How we became a we
and I died and you lived on
restored and pretty.
