OH KENSINGTON 04

171. OH KENSINGTON 04:

Never wanted to be like that be the one holding the memory book and waiting for signatures be the one with the pitchfork and the spade waiting for Spring the one building bookcases for books which never come NEVER wanted to sing a’capella in an orchestra of sound never wanted to walk when riding would do never sought to be the stevedore with the jaunt black cap or the watchman holding lanterns as each one burns down never wanted to sketch in a painter’s color class never sought the robin or the trout NEVER wished to wise up and be the best man in the class NEVER sought the kerosene when all they sold was gas never washed the paint board in turpentine or gum never learned to mumble when the words just wouldn’t come never rinsed the sailboat in a sea of sky-blue water never carried burdens never wanted nothing never sought forgiveness easy payments or reduction NEVER called a saint down from his perch on high never cursed a Goddess never learned to lie and the long and twisty road I rode I learned from every curve first calling it conjecture then steaming in a rave never read the fine print with scheduled arrival times never danced for dollars never cried for dimes never sat back listening for the turtle dove or jay never washed shut windows NEVER said OK - and so slack-jawed that a Jimmy with a cavern at the edge could take a long-lost waller to the miller in the town and stop along the baseball tracks and whistle down a freighter or lob stones at passing churches and check up on them LATER than anything else I wouldn’t linger near too long the water’s edge where the fright-men buy baloney and the oilers jump the ledge and turkey doves and crane-men shoot from hollers in the trees and look down at miasma and true sickness and disease where doctors call in nurses and the sutures are unnerved on mornings after horseback and the dredge of history’s urge and toil means circumference in the math-man’s filthy room while in scabbards ten wild fencers throw bayonets on through the gloom of distaff and collection and thirty wild men who’ve all come up from something and will end up there again wear wash buckets from Fourteenth Street and come around the legend’s curve while rain comes down in buckets and comic horses herd along the bozo-blank of landscapes written in by Willy Drayer and Ted Stevens and the dreadlocks call the uncle up for Mayor and the tony rathered police-chief douses fires with a laugh and they stripe the lines ‘cross Main Street and cancel out the yellow glass where amber waves of grain are seen subscribing to the Post while rabid hounds of circumstance grow tired and at fault three turkeys land between two yards and talk among themselves with ribald raps of weary jokes and late-lamented hopes and harbingers of westerly along the nasty touch bring serpent tails and pestilence grown furry and as such we listen to laments sung in a very minor key of horsemen and of barnyards and Lancelots for free who fly to steady mansions piled high atop the sky and wonder willy-nilly if the reason’s worth the try but WHO KNOWS WHEN THE SANDS WILL STOP and who imagines less and forty sailors dreary drunk curse at the sea and YES for just this once they’ve walked on water whether celebrated high or not they all return like chieftains to engather what they’ve got and some will learn by doing while the ones who can’t learn teach and they line the shelves up everywhere but put them OH JUST out of reach - until MY FURRY FRIEND the end becomes the means AND WE ALL WALK DOWN TO STARBOARD to see if it’s really what it seems.