Aug 18 – Gods and Fools (re-edited)

I.

“Gods and Fools”

Heads of milo
heads of corn
heads of cotton, cattle, bean, and wheat,
ear of sheep and wing of hawk that beats the
grass of bleating sod and bale of hay
and cord of wood that
readies all the year’s-born
for autumn’s swinging thrall.

How hard to speak in prose
the I of I
and me of me
and place them all in happy rows
without the weed of
disingenuity in all I can put to
flesh to say and put it off for days
and other ways of many lives
I’ve lived through mouths of gods and spirits foul my sense
if I perchance to call it “good”.
Yes, Verse will have to do
and see me through to fearful day when
me, myself, and I reveal by blinding strike the heart that seeks
but never says in ways the mind
might know and false believe what only gods and fools perceive.

II.

Without the firm of land or
green within the sight
does man have sole the shift of men
to see and say and feel the things
that could or should or might.

III.

Back and forth
and forth and back
along the bridge and over,
and around it too to nowhere in particular
do I not even like it here nor would I even place my here
over, along, or under any other place
but time, it seems, does tend to breed a little content,
if such was unconceived in love but
contempt for nearly all the plots of earth I knew
like wandering Jew who knows no hand of home
nor feet of stone
nor flesh of bone has grown in me to ground the mind that roams the seas of God’s unknown and endless rods
and whips whose yams are not sweet enough in June
when the last flower of the road sloughs its bloom and
spring vaunts ever higher toward her starry tomb.