1. When, young, I slept in a cold bed My sleep was classical and calm. The fallow field, the pruned vine The call of curlew and of kine -- These claimed and tuned my pastoral head: I had no need for the dream range. 2. My wife was softig and baroque, But kept a hard board in the bed. The burning colors of her day, Eclipsing darkness cooled away. Still, all that dark till I awoke, I had the run of the dream range. 3. From a dream of existential honey I woke to voices crying @3"more!"@1 -- Downpayments to save the nuptial manse (From the fell clutch of low finance) And gadgets might shame a metal whore -- And @3that@1 was life on the dream range. 4. Then Law came, like a walking turd, Faith, Hope and Charity to divorce. She kept the board, she kept the bed, She kept the coldness in her head. I paid for every loving word -- O, To hell! with life on the dream range! Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LITTLE TURTLE by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY PEGGY, FR. THE GENTLE SHEPHERD by ALLAN RAMSAY MYRMIDONES: THE WOUNDED EAGLE by AESCHYLUS PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 32. AL-KHABIR by EDWIN ARNOLD THE SPARROW by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN NELLY TELLS HOW BABY CAME by THOMAS STEPHENS COLLIER OUT OF THE SHADOWS: AN UNFINISHED SONNET-SEQUENCE 14 by JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER JR. |