No 'keel to breakers' or 'bellied canvas'
just a rusted-out royal blue detroit prairie schooner
bald uniroyals on pavement.
Goodby Mary Baker Eddy's
concrete tit
steeples, spires
seabirds and city lights
cream-pie and baked beans
sex, son of sam
on the cross bronx expressway
noise, gritty teeth and nose
coffee, chess
and King Kong.
No sooner had the taste of the last steamed crab
melted on our tongues like the late summer day
than the tired Applachians receded in the distance
another uprooted memory.
Pizza parlors
Dairy-Queens
suburban sprawl
patios, pools
better homes and gardens
fences spreading out
vivsecting the billowing land
containing the cows
and rendering finite the infinite fields.
From our swart ship, the past bobbing in a wake of mile markers
guzzling coffee while an epic pauses long enough to note
the fertile decay and moist ferment of the new season.
Ken Beck
10-27-1977
