old words - an unquenchable itch
under my skin. Buddha has caught me
offguard today, in tension moments
where I slip away from peace - I
chase after him and become an Icarus type
tragedy. My dream - I am a Don Quixote
in dreams - is
of famous last stands against injustice & the tyranny of shallow thought
of old loves and new loves & general admiration from people I respect
who will say that I lived when
I die, and write romantic epitaphs
for my humble grave.
But, oh - then these sweet dreams
fall to a nightmare of inconsequence - imagined
sag of shoulders in Iowa cornfields or,
worse - Nebraska! The only joy left
being cows or some new machine
to conform the earth, in little rows -
playing chess in a calico dress, fat and
mothered, my rocking chair a heaven
of wickerwork - and kisses from
liver spotted lips . . . But NO!
Again hope blisters -
I will call my game shogi and play
with old masters in the cold of Russia, or
my young lover in the ancient architecture
of Italy - by rivers rowed with gondoliers -
I will find a shikari and he will take
me to places never seen in the deeps
of India & Africa & Cambodia &
Canada - and I will find joy
in wheat fields as I pass them
by screaming my
mad poetry at the cows.