ifs
And its own what-might’ve-been
But this way
Fve elected to follow
And cast my vote
Each waking day in
I avoid
The possibility
Of taking the past too seriously
Or feeling any bitterness
Or sadness
This way
When my ship comes in
FHVe passed out of mind
Beyond the sight of land
And won’t hesitate
For a second
To look back on all this
With fondness or remiss
The air’ll be clear
The moon’ll be there
And you, whoever
You are and hope to be,
Will be here with my love
FOG ROLLED IN
fog rolled in
drink rolled down
water towers
cars sixteen floors down (night)
wind in, cool off the room
seen The Quiet Man (homeric)
my brain feels homeric in its dawning
Joan up in Ithaca (my arms cool)
reading at Holly’s a week from tonight
readings reel in my brain
plans reel in my brains
to marry Joan (secretly of course)
to set up our house (better wishes bad feelings
cautions lay to rest) a place to live for two people
life a subtheme
drink cooling my throat, a new notebook underway
the night in place
the night in a place in my heart in my doubts
my fingers itch (for what) I
loosen them, the self
rests in the night it is asleep now this poem
is awake underneath the poem is a dream soon
the dream will be all over
P.S.
Enormously difficult
To explain exactly
How I feel
Clearing my brain
After seeing
Where I’m going
After resting
After taking care of this and that
For another round of works
Finished one thing
Found a solid voice
(Temporary, I’m sure)
Time to lean back
And think about life
Roughly halfway over
(Over what? Water?)
Very little
In the way of theory
Cropping up (like grass)
More and more
The time turns to practice
The sense of unity
I feel should be somewhere
I guess’ll be there
Long after I’m gone
And someone else
Looks back on all this
And talks to me
Across the ages
With me talking
Through my poems
Up to a certain point
(A hundred, two hundred years)
Language (the ass) carries
The burden of meaning
While after (say
Around five hundred years hence)
A flipflop (oops, a pothole!)
The meaning carries
The language
By then (like me)
Changed beyond recognition
And to think
This doesn’t even require
A grand plan
Although, if I recall correctly,
At one time
I thought it did
And had one
Ready for anything
Nowadays I’m more or less content
To let a lot
Of things take their own courses
Like amiable rivers
Making blue lines
Down the map of
