............
.........The Poetry Of.
.................................... Richard Brooks
................
................
................ To See The World In A Grain of Sand
........... or a Groundhog
..................
.................. Stopped in traffic, the place
.............. where most of my
.............. enlightenment comes, I spied
.............. on the side of the road,
.............. amid the trash and candy wrappers, a fat-assed
.............. brown-furred movement.
.............. Took me a minute, till the mind
.............. went through its list of what it
.............. could be's
.............. till three cherries fell in a line on Holy
.............. Groundhog: what an
.............. idiot. Blithely eating
.............. god knows what
.............. mere inches from oblivion, its back to traffic
.............. -munching; now and then, checking out the monster metal
.............. queued up,
.............. ready to flatten him, his groundhog guts
.............. the next thing for
.............. a forager to find. He is
.............. all of us
.............. I think, only
.............. we don't
.............. know it.
..............
..............
..............
..............
..............
.............. Haze
..............
.............. Fever
.............. I had
.............. fever
.............. that is why
.............. I could not prop one thought
.............. against another in any way to make them
.............. stand upright; they kept
.............. falling
.............. into one another. Tented cards, they nudged
.............. each other, folded over, making patterns
.............. I couldn't read. Flattened trails
.............. going nowhere fast. This is what it will be
.............. like
.............. to be very old
..............
.............. and a day will seem victorious if all
.............. that I can do is find the
.............. dentures
.............. that I've struggled to remember
.............. go into my mouth
.............. and not
.............. my pocket.
..............
...............
...............
...............
...............
............... Big
...............
............... You thought you were alone
............... with it, but here I am on borders of the page
............... the ones all
............... wavey-dried with moisture.
............... I keep watch
............... like a mastiff
............... at your feet; steady,
............... big as a tractor axle, tough
............... but soft, so soft with things that break, so let me
............... hold your heart a while; it's big, but so is mine.
............... That's how I know
............... it needs a lot of room with arms all round the edges,
............... never gaps
............... to let the wind in, catch a chill
............... and I will not let go- not even if you tell me. I know
............... how to hold you whether you
............... zig
............... zag,
............... push
............... or pull, I'll just look past it
............... at your eyes, the calm and entry point
............... and go there. They're the hooks that
............... hold, the coathook looks
............... where you hang yourself
............... then ease
............... off
............... drooping
............... into love again.
...............
..............
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