Ready to Go
Wooden Water Tower
Instance foreshadowing
fall out among other tents
signs of good luck experienced by the forcible dreamer
to discourage believable gliding
forever in frozen morning
disfigured commerce
perfected expenditure.
Large men bathing on a public beach
heels scoop nearly orange sand
apparently in hero worship he
follows laying in each depression one object
a small doll's leg, a larger leg, a plastic
collar, bleeding stones, the face of a crab,
trunk of a green plastic soldier, aiming arms
of another toy soldier, a starfish, a rotting
nail of fortifications literally come
to nothing, a flat, chrome disk.
You have heard your own name
all you ever heard from him
you reconstructed his voice from one word
mirror image to the enemy thought
spelled backwards, the real
resemblances among things
those false, too, he called the soul.
::
Ready to Go was published in 1982 by Ithaca House. It brings together a number of my poems written from 1972-77. All my books are available from Small Press Distribution or Amazon.