Go On

Go On


old men know the speed of death
the urge of a body burning
blue fire gasoline
a gravity of
sparks

gone

& it had been
so very bright so
hot & sniffing the air
there were no far horizons
there was only endless desire

gone

actuarial tables give him seventeen
the solar system sixteen billion
close your eyes & it is
all the same: ask
Albert there

gone

what was i doing
just now drifting off
thinking about Billy Myers
how he wrote a book report on
a Sgt. Rock comic book & got a B

gone

or a physicist who stares out a window
overlooking the lake of this city
thinking about an invisible
bowl of peaches picked
for Kublai Khan

gone

or how she left
the water running in
the bath & kept laughing
the sound so insistent so wet
& how else would a three-year-old be

gone


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry