“Cats on a Farm”
It will travel great distances this morning.
It will always live at home.
When I die,
We die,
But the truth will return,
Somehow.
Judge me not.
Judge only yourself,
And,
Gentle there.
I could not breathe,
So,
I wrote.
“Life in Sculpture”
My memories do not ripen with age.
They get worn and wear thin.
Memory is good or bad,
Not neutral and,
Therefore,
Suspect.
I am the enemy.
I put crimes in my heart that do not exist.
Trapped in these bodies,
No outlet,
No life.
Can I drain my own swamp?
Look at his pain—
A suicide,
A vagrant,
And he went on.
Who caused what?
Men become Gods.
All died,
Holy and Roman and Empirical.
What can you do?
You can run.
What will you do?—
I want to live free and die small.
I want to know what comes.
Dusty road.
Water in the ditch.
Sun overhead.
I see all the land.
I know nothing.
I want the land to know me.
Some say,
“What is the land.”
A corpse?
Heroes came this way.
That is the course of the heroic—
What can be will be,
Of course,
Of course.
Don’t do that,
They say.
It will kill you.
It needs no help,
Sayeth the Lord.
Evil,
Lusty pride.
You precede the fall,
I know you.
I feel so clever,
Remembering all my tricks and wins.
Then,
Not a full day gone,
I am loosed from your false care.
Yes,
All is in me,
All the devil and all the winged angels,
All in me.
Repeat,
Repeat,
Repeat.
We borrow this life,
And not for very long.
The smoking vessel seen off the coast and the silent struggle that happens below,
A far flicker in the star-lit night.
I pity them and,
Then,
Remember,
They are doing,
Already,
What we all must do,
Eventually.
Cheated?
No,
Say the Stoics,
Their full play three of three,
Not three of four acts only.
