5423. THOUGH NOT CHASTE I AM CHASED

THOUGH NOT CHASTE 

I AM CHASED

Or, what the heck, it could be the other way around

as well; I'll never know the difference, and the declension

holds no secrets. My matchhead fountain of defeat won't

put out the match nor quench anyone's thirst. A drunk can

walk through any passageway he wants; no one alive

shall bother him  -  like Frank O'Hara's gem, walking

sideways and singing glumly. What matters : 'measure

shmeasure know shknew unless the material rattle us

around...and yet they bothers us when we dance the

pussy pout.' That's twenty miles away from me right

now. Over the grass horizon, the wet sun is rising -

there is dew all over the grass and  -  on that field there -

between the small trees a white mist, a fine white mist,

back-lit some more with the new day's sun. no orange

this morning. I think of Walt Whitman, and that strange

poem of his that always gives me a shudder, a tear, a

real cry from the heart : 'Vigil Strange I Kept on the 

Field One Night'. I cannot go there. I cannot go there.

I cannot go there; I won't again. I too have folded my

soldier well in his blanket and buried him where he fell.

My soldier is a poem, a writing, a scribble. I chance

to dance on the face of the lingering grave. We are

all to be welcomed home again, we are all 

to be welcomed home.