Published: August 25, 2010

Endless fields and urban streets
Adorn the minds of sour poets—
Fields that cover a corner of the earth
So that we cannot fathom what a wall is,
Streets that undulate through space and time
And make us ponder the existence of god.
Unidentified scars are in the hearts of man,
Acorns and pinecones and pears
In the eyes of children.
Our budget is for beech leaves and
Dogwood petals, our currency sandpaper,
Our government the highest hill in town.
We wear our black ties beneath
Our blue collars and quote Ginsberg
To make ends meet. We grind novel
Pages in our mortars and use our
Fountain pens as pestles,
The words triturated by our need
For success. The moon is in the
Faces of our women, a beauty
We cannot picture unless it is right
In front of us, a sight better explained
By a guitar or clarinet. The ocean’s
Never blue enough, the grass never green,
But we drink the tepid water and smoke
The grass just the same. The
Feeling’s in our fugues and the
Distance in our dirges, and our sepia-
Toned fears are held on display in
Chelsea galleries. Staring with our
Inkwell eyeglasses through the
Trees struck by our own mortality,
We eye each horse in sight and
Declare it lesser than humankind.