Eugene
City bustle and he’s all mind and muscle
He’s drinking the water of the continent
From dirty plastic brought to his lips tragic
He cries for the life he lost
He cries for the meadow mornings
Moving cattle through dewy grass
He wishes for the night city streets
And calm heartbeats
But he fell off track and now free wheels,
From the corner store he
Buys himself forgotten metal medals
That he bargains for respect.
Now laid out lies the stained black glass
That holds the tars
Of China and the poppies of
Myanmar that mirror in his wild mind
The stars he half climbs nightly
He believes nothing’s quite
As it should be
“They’re following me can’t you see
They’re tracking me in the city night
City wide”
And he walks on
And hands out Salvation Army diamonds
And wanders
On into the evening red lightened
Slightly disquieted and slightly
Heartened he’s parted with his day
His walking off to pray to the
Gods of the cruel night
And ward off the concrete fright.
———-
New again
She lives in a secret valley
In the secret mountains
And her hands are coloured red
By the spice she picks
In the early morning the wind brings
Thick fog in
The fields turn never ending
Sinking from green into white
with bent over baskets on the horizon
She smiles.
———-
Berdoo
The lake has captured the moon
And the giants slumber and wander on its banks
They see diamond cities in the ripples
On its surface, and some lie curled
and others cry of the cursed
Visions, lie with great tensions in the huge muscles
and taught tendons
and hidden in the wilderness
Some are twisted and bent resting
On heavy engines
Feeling the burning life
Beneath the metal
some lie still on the water
Some see the orient
Tinged tea-leaf-green
Some weep
the town sleeps
Across the fissure
some hear
The faint echo of a murky shout
Or the growing howl
Of the piston’s sound.
———-
Poems © Joseph Goldblatt
Image by ambroo from Pixabay (modified)