[New-Poetry] Eine Kleinzahler

[David Graham]

Art & Youth

Pliny said these lights in the grass are stars;
a man walking home from his day's labor
needn't lift his head skyward to tell the signs
Before the heavens were busy with Sputniks
and idiot beeps that Say hey! to far off worlds
we ran at the lights with jars. We ran and ran
until nothing was left of our bodies to spend.

An ache so sweet was born those nights
in the heat, in the grass, at summer's waning
that we try for it years later in the dance
of lust and lust's passing.

                                                  Poor Swinburne,
dithery and gallant in great drafty rooms,
would have had this ache flogged back into him,
but the heart is soon corrupted
and love's accoutrements grow fierce.

--August Kleinzahler.  Storm Over Hackensack.  Moyer Bell, 1985.



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David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
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