Thursday, October 22, 2009

Victoria Park Collage (written 1967)

VICTORIA PARK COLLAGE

The foghorn moans like a taken virgin

I'm here
sitting on a bench
facing Rochester
wondering
where that old man is
I saw here last year
the one whose ragged pockets
contained long-gone tales like lint and dust

Like a serpent the fog steals up the beach
a threat between its teeth

The sounds of somersaulting
sand-throwing children
bounce off the blue-bell waves into the trees
like a happy plague of bees

Hey Bobby: Bobby!

Mom! Mom! Billy Just.

Mom! Mom!
Look at me mom!

MOM! LOOK!!

The fog is harmless
Sandburg knew that
I should have remembered

From the water-works
to the coal-coated piers
like a beautiful necklace
the lovers murmur their private psalms
their eyes happy
as children on swings

The foghorn moans like a taken virgin

Then there are the freaks
stoned
scattered
on the green-wave knolls like autumn leaves
They all have an excuse
each one different
each one sufficient

The wind is perched waiting in the trees for unaware children

The lighthouse like a messiah draped in a toga
of white-washed metal
stands gathering waves
around its concrete knees
I am sure the gulls are parables

Near the shoreline waves curl around splinters of sun

No one here knows
I am engraving their faces
in a Book of Earth
Even if they did
they wouldn't care
And besides
I would have it no other way

The foghorn moans like a taken virgin

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