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Art Gomez
The man squirms at the fringe
of the Farmer’s Market,
claims his cranny, and wild
smiles a grimace.
His quarrels turn to spittle across the sidewalk.
Viscous, thick as lubricant,
his words drool
from the corners of
his downturned mouth
onto the front of his threadbare shirt.
Leaning forward he defies gravity,
hovering face-down as if feet
are locked in concrete.
Jerking violently, he straightens
then slides down the side of the building
that guards his back until he sits
Aleta mentions in her tender letters,
Among a chain of quaint and touching things,
That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters,
And given to strange deeds and mutterings.
No longer without trace or thought of fear,
Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan;
But have become the victim of grim care,
With three brown beauties to support alone.
But none the less will you be in my mind,
Wild May that cantered by the risky ways,
With showy head-cloth flirting in the wind,
From market in the glad December days;
Wild May of whom even other girls could rave
Before sex tamed your spirit, made you slave.
There's a poet tombed in you,
Man of blood and iron!
There's a dreamer dead and buried
Deep beneath your cynic frown,
Deep beneath your toil!
And deep beneath my music,
There's a strong man stirs in me;
There's a ghost of blood and granite
Coffined in this madness
Carpentered of Song!
You live your day and drain it;
I weave my dream and lose it;
But the red blood lost in me awakens still at times,
At all your city's sky-line,
At all your roaring market-place,
At all its hum of power--