The Grand Trunk Road
The Grand Trunk Road
Verses by Don L. Richards © 1997, 2000, 2007.
Other Verses: Stranger on the Way Home, The Touch of Photons,
The Universe Next Door,
Adventures on the Black Frontier
The Last Train to Moonlight and
That Undiscovered Country
1. SANDAL PRINTS(12/06/97)
Dwelling among monks was no answer. We
Strode into the sun, away from the cloister,
Away from gardens dripping with sultanas,
Away from missals seasoned with finger grease.
What were we seeking then, among the dwarf
Saw palmettos, bleeding among wayward
Thorns, sweating along the king's highway's ruts,
Hoping for salvation among prickly pears?
We were convinced Christ was a desert dweller,
Preferring pathways through cactus lanes.
As always, we were wrong: without our knowledge
He had wandered ahead, we discovered,
Leaving inexplicable sandal prints,
Lugging the Kingdom of God in a suitcase.
[Home]
2. REACHING FOR AIR(12/19/97)
We thought we could win the war by staying
Out of it, but it came to us and tore
At us with bloody talons, ate our brains,
Then left us lifeless as it trundled onward,
Only to vanish in clouds of poison.
Given a second chance we would have fought.
But we had no second chance, and what would
We have fought for, and for whom? All the issues
Had already been decided long before
This lethal vulture clutched our intestines.
Now we lie smothered with dirt which clogs our
Nostrils, stuffs our speechless mouths, blinds our eyes,
Dissolves our stinking bodies with decay:
We are far less important than we thought.
[Home]
3. NIGHTMARE PARLOR (12/20-21/97)
They constantly assail my consciousness,
Waking or sleeping: insolent reflections
Of life and death, scraps of a motley quilt,
Each patch of which teems with people
Whom I know or do not know, all of whom
Perform, intruding rudely, cavorting,
Mouthing cynical soundless nonsense at me:
Lewd pageantry in my offended mind.
I have not sought counsel of these vulgar
Phantoms. I rebuke them, I order them
Away amidst their sneering taunts. Grudgingly,
They give ground knowing that they will return
Through undefended portals to defile
The parlor of my thoughts with their forays.
[Home]
4. TRAVELING FIRST CLASS (12/30/97-01/03/98)
Sharp distinctions deter our progress as
We stumble erratically through life.
Somehow it has been decided that there
Should be various classes of travel:
By crawling, by limping, by trotting, by
Staggering, by wheelchair, by ambulance,
By falling, by vertigo, by dancing,
By endless footraces through timeless dark,
Unclocked by anything but broken watches.
I searched for you by all these listed means,
And agitated others not worth recount.
With aching brain, muscles salted by worry,
Exhausted, I fell asleep. And there you were:
You starred in the cinema of my dreams.
[Home]
5. BAD BREATH (01/14/98)
Eloquent gestures do not disguise decay
As we, senescent actors prate, creaking
About our rotting stage among tattered
Scrims and flies and disintegrating flats.
Our audience grows older but no wiser,
Lusting faintly after forgotten thrills,
Among miasmas of decaying flowers,
Evocative of long-forgotten Junes,
But now exuding odors of the tomb.
Where is the new spring we desperately
Need, with its multitudes of bustling blooms,
To send us messages of perpetual
Renewal? We will never find it here:
Our planet, burned out, fades from blue to brown.
[Home]
6. BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR (01/21/98)
Brightness falls from the air as the sunlight,
Blocked, orange echoing behind the black
Serrated mountains west is fused with azure,
Turning darker, laden with ghost contrails.
We do not want to be disturbed while this
Spectacle fades before us because we
Belong inside it and we will be wounded
By the slightest intrusion of distraction.
We fade and the day fades and we want to be
Participants in just one more service
Acclaiming the hurtling arrows of time
As they girdle the earth: invisible
Parade of heartbeats ticking out the minutes
To the death of one more remaining day.
[Home]
7. PARADES (02/11/98)
Rich dappled textures of mixed objects strewn
Over our desktop denote the order
Colors impose on the chaos of our
Always unfinished work, which waits to be
Completed in the secrecy of hidden
Cerebral minute ruby pulsing channels.
We push our way outdoors, stand on stone curbs:
Now banished to the role of mere spectators,
We see our youth marching yesterday streets
Through brilliance of our ancient downtown scenes.
Transitory western twilight beckons us
Inside, back to our mixed object-strewn desk,
To ponder amid ecru incandescence
Parades of disassembled squandered moments.
[Home]
8. I AM TOO TIRED TO GO ON (03/04/98)
I am too tired to go on. Every pain
Assumes qualities of its own, expanding,
Accentuating neighboring pains, placing
Emphasis on disruption of all thought
Processes. Picking my pathway with care,
I arrive at a diffusion of light
Of no apparent origin or target.
This light creates no shadows, and varies
With vulgar displays of candlepower.
It tries to cow me by blinding me, sending
Me stumbling searching for comforting blackness.
This is nothing new. This is not a trial.
I will not be fatigue-forced to curse the sources
Of punishment when I will not be punished.
[Home]
9. FORWARD, MARCH (03/23/98)
We are sentenced to a Munich streetcorner
With festive crowds, these same damned mobs we have
Been plunged among in dreams unwillingly
For too many years, as mellow brass echoes,
Battered by beating trap drums rebounding
Among high-gabled buildings above the
Cobbles and concrete. We hold hands tightly
As serried troops stamp by in gleaming boots.
Pot helmets, cerise jackets, blue trousers,
Taut faces, sparkling bayonets, bright banners,
Tell us nothing we did not know before.
Once we were elated because we knew
This could never happen again. But now
We realize it happens all the time.
[Home]
10. POPPIES AND CROWS (04/11/98)
Poppies, now shaded in the afternoon,
Glow crimson among deep emerald grass
And I praise them in my mind as I pace
Without effort along this hissing highway.
My mind has disengaged itself again:
I hear nothing, nor do I feel my footsteps.
I walk in light, all feeling in my vision,
Focused on poppies, two of them, nodding,
Crimson in the shadows of the roadside.
Soon, all consciousness is unimportant
And I find myself along a gravel berm.
There appears before me, a black velvet
Severed crow's head on glinting pebbles.
Reason is rendered virtually useless.
[Home]
11. FORMAL EDUCATION (04/30/98)
Our loose cannon mind makes us small children,
Forsaking us in mud-caked schoolyard:
We still slip and fall in puddles rounding
Softball bases in chilly early spring.
The gray days of tiny desks, rooms redolent
With faint smells of vomit and urine, unwashed
Children and clothing, hands raised, hands lowered,
Reedy voices singing, tinkling pianos,
Dark grainy movies of Wolfe and Montcalm,
Or Stonewall Jackson dying in Dixie:
We stood in spelling bees along the walls,
And fell in fusillades of baffling words.
We walked alone home from our school,
Shivering on the way through spreading darkness.
[Home]
12. SHACK SUNSET (05/11/98)
These umber rutted puddled earthen streets
Reflect the orange of the drooping sun
Falling slowly among long-shadowed shacks.
In this place I was born in storms just past,
To brood, seated on this broken deal step,
Basking in twilight, on life's cruelties.
The rain this afternoon beat palmettos flat,
But now the mellow sky makes windows glitter:
Cracked mirrors glinting blue and streaking red.
Humidity gives birth to listless thoughts
Of breathless people, stepping carefully
Through murky mud, barefoot, without purpose,
Without hope, stunned by unremitting heat,
Through stifling scents of bacon fat and greens.
[Home]
13. WE FALL BEHIND (05/11/98)
We fall behind as though it were important
To keep up with the latest sweep of fashion,
To cluster under a colorful banner,
To arrive at a parlous destination,
To seek reward in uncertain righteousness,
To exult in vacuous achievements.
Yellow billows of grit assail our eyes
As squinting we stumble through Central Asia.
Let us break ranks with those whose dust we breathe,
Even if only to slump beside the trail.
Hosts traveled here in jeweled panoply
But little vicious horsemen ate their guts.
Let vainglory vanish in pointless pomp
While we explore the forests of our brain.
[Home]
14. SINCE HE BELIEVED IN GOD HE WENT TO HELL (06/17/98)
Is hell pretty? He wanted to find out.
Certainly the earth was gorgeous with every
Leaf on every tree sharply visible
At every moment of his stroll through life,
But such overwhelming reality
Was cloying. Brain distended with beauty,
He still was unsatisfied, and lustful appetite
Drove him on to more gluttonous pursuits,
When, gorged with too many garish sunrises,
And sated with too many lightning strikes,
He fell victim to a surfeit of landscapes.
Sheer weight of the experience snuffed him.
He got his wish: to see if Hell was pretty.
He hasn't been in touch with us to say.
[Home]
15. THE FIFTIETH PARALLEL (06/25/98)
Sweet songs of sadness murmured in the dusk
Convince the sole survivor of disaster,
Stripped naked and afraid observing death,
To reach for solace in the form of sleep.
Where do these dulcet melodies arise,
Lulling the mind to slumber in defeat,
Soothing the stinging sores of melancholy,
Erasing scenes of carnage from the brain?
They come from sighing reeds in rippled swamps,
From flocks of looming loons in tamarack,
Whose curdling calls elicit memories
Of keening over fallen autumn leaves.
They come from chilled still water by gray shores
Of misted lakes transformed to eerie mirrors.
[Home]
16. BEWARE OF WHAT YOU PRAY FOR (06/26/98)
We reach out, groping anew, without
Knowing where to reach, blindly, hesitant,
Afraid of being fools once again.
Why be afraid? We should become accustomed
To this embarrassment. Scornful laughter
Assails us in chunks and sparkling splinters
As we try to cover our humiliation.
We cry for help along sharp stony paths,
Barefoot, ragged, pleading for succor
In this merciless alkaline moonscape.
The penalty of blood is our reward:
Our minds are broken, and when we extend
Our hand to put it in the hand of God,
He seizes it and drags us through the brambles.
[Home]
17. INDEPENDENCE DAY (07/04/98)
Seduced by all you smiling upturned faces
I sit chairborne in the bed of a pickup
In a parade on a sweaty morning
Beneath pines in an unincorporated
City where families sprawl in folding chairs,
To wave languidly at this holiday
Procession celebrating stars and stripes.
I beam at peopled curbs to right and left,
I see arms and hands fluttering amid
Swirls of red, white and blue banners festooned
Along the forest-shadowed line of march.
I am here because this obligation
Has thrust itself upon me, and I am
Held forfeit to a first and last hurrah.
[Home]
18. CRAPE MYRTLE (07/21/98)
East Indian shrub (Lagerstroemia indica)
Of the loosestrife family widely known in
Warm climates for its flowers, you tower outside
My office window, beckoning with blooms.
Four years ago on Independence Day,
I spaded in a spindly gallon plant,
Hoping you would produce effusively.
Spraying bright pink cotton candy blossoms,
You have surpassed my wildest expectations.
I lavished water on you as you grew,
And you in turn produced beguiling visions,
Faintly redolent of lavender, lilac,
And musky earthly scents from tiny petals,
Seducing several senses all at once.
[Home]
19. I AM A GUEST IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE (10/14/98)
I erode suddenly, and without warning
Chunks of my life fall from the river bank
Of age dissolving into scattered grains,
Descending downstream in casual ripples.
I once strode lion-like through neighborhoods,
Fearless of pain, conquering leagues with paces
One after the other, but then agony
Defeated, deflated my arrogance.
Now all my ways are defined by barricades.
Timid I plod on pallid cliffs of fear.
Hoping vaguely to habituate myself
To stumbling along this vertiginous ledge
Which once strung endlessly and wide before me
When mortal pride ignored time's ravages.
[Home]
20. THE HEART'S TRUE HORROR (11/06/98)
Gurneyed swiftly here through green corridors,
Heart split, stitched back together, a rag doll,
I lie cold and dead without memory.
Returned to a synthetic life with codeine,
I bring you no news of eternity.
Replete with stomach tubes and dangling wires,
I lie adrift, gelid among green curtains.
Angels of indeterminate origin
Appear, minister and then disappear.
Sleep sinks me into stark oblivion:
I try to kill myself against my will
By tugging feebly at my bandages,
Not knowing why, and horrified, discover
Forces beyond the utmost bounds of horror.
[Home]