No Muse Around, I Sit Down By The Side Of The Road
No muse around, I sit down by the side of the road
and let my solitude inspire me, insights
flashing like unnameable night birds
across the occult intuition of the moon.
The dark matter of nocturnal words
like the nerves of the light, the hidden scaffolding
before the light begins to shine like neurons
or the superclustering of galaxies strung out
along my axons rooted in 120 billion cells of starmud.
The silence revels in its unpredictability.
Moonrise over the birches, great blue herons
reflected in the waters of the swamp,
and a parity among wild things that makes us all
equally susceptible to each other
as we charge the air and ionize the shadows
with our sentience, everybody with blood in the game.
No rules. Just instincts. Life neither fair, nor sly
when the snow owl snatches the purse of the mouse
that was trembling under the juniper
its cheeks full of seeds like the eyes
of another roll of the dice. Peaceful here,
remotely freaked with danger though I've outwalked
the ghosts and robots who were harrying me
like an uncooperative medium swarmed by voices
pleading with me for time shares in my life awhile.
The far town, diffuse, an apparition,
a haze of infra red above the tree-line,
as the road I'm on narrows deeper into the woods,
though I don't know what it is
I'm walking away from or toward
or if one mile west is one mile east
or the earth is moving under me
and I'm just trying to keep my balance
by staying in the same place. Until
I get to the farmhouse where the road
loops back on itself like a needle or a noose
and I can feel it following me with its eyes
like shattered moonlight beaming
from the windows that still keep more inside
than they let on, something sacral about the place
with its sway-back roof and overgrown porch
playing solitaire with the floorboards
laid out like a well used deck of cards
curled at the corners as if someone
had cheated themselves, no one else around.
The gate's a drunk swinging by one arm
[...] Read more
poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
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