In the back of the room, the greyhound.
Well I was writing about--
in more mythical vocabulary or something
like that-- sunflowers.
At that point I ran into Ron Rosen, who
was a younger poet, who had--
I had talked to before and was trying
to explain Williams's conception--
or what I thought was Williams's conception of images into him.
So he had come back from a hitchhiking trip
and written a poem about a diner in Oklahoma,
or a waitress in a diner in Oklahoma,
which was so natural that I realized
that I was not actually writing about my immediate
surroundings.
At, the time, I was working in the bank on the greyhound,
so I tried to compose out of the elements there,
going back, in a sense, to 1930, for the time, in a sense,
and then to Williams's Paterson in much detail.
To look around where I was in a circumstance that
was, at that time to my mind, not particularly poetic.
I mean, I realize it was poetic but I hadn't realized it,
really, to write about it.
In the depth of the Greyhound terminal,
sitting glumly on a baggage truck, looking at the sky,
waiting for the Los Angeles express
to depart, worrying about eternity.
Over the post office roof in the night time,
red downtown heaven.
Staring from my eyeglasses, I realized,
shuddering, we thought we're not eternity,
nor the poverty of our lives, irritable baggage clerk,
or the millions of weeping relatives surrounding
the buses, waving goodbye.
Nor other millions of the poor, rushing around
from city to city to see their loved ones.
Nor an Indian, dead with fright, talking to a huge cop
by the Coke machine.
Nor this trembling old lady with a cane,
taking the last trip of her life.
Nor the red cap cynical porter collecting his quarters
and smiling under the smashed baggage,
nor me looking around at the horrible dream.
Nor mustached Negro operating clerk named
Spade, dealing out with his marvelous long hand,
the fate of thousands of express packages.
Nor Fairy Sam in the basement, limping
from leaden trunk to trunk, nor Joe at the counter,
with his nervous breakdowns, smiling
cowardly at the customers.
Nor the grayish green whale's stomach interior loft
where we keep the baggage and hideous rack.
Hundreds of suitcases full of tragedy,
rocking back and forth, waiting to be opened.
Nor the baggage that's lost or damaged,
handles, nameplates vanished, busted wires and broken ropes
hold trunks exploding on the concrete floor.
Nor steam bags emptied into the night in the final warehouse.
Yet they reminded me of angels, all living above.
Dressed in blue overalls, black face,
the official angel of workman's death.
Pushing, with his belly, a huge tin horse
piled high with black baggage.
Looking up as he passed, the yellow lightbulb both
of the loft, and holding high on his arm
an iron shepherd's crook.
It was a racket, I realized sitting myself on top of them
now-- it is my wont at lunch time to rest my tired foot.
It was the rack, great wooden shelves and sconce end spokes
and beams assembled, floor to roof, jumbled with baggage.
The Japanese white metal footboard
trunk, bawdily flowered and headed for Fort Bragg.
One Mexican green paper package in purple rope,
adorned with names for Nogales.
Hundreds of radiators all at once for Eureka,
crates of Hawaiian underwear, rows of posters scattered
over the Peninsula, nuts for Sacramento,
one human eye for Napa, an aluminum box
of human blood for Stockton, and a little red package
of keys for Calistoga.
It was a wreck.
And these on the racks, I saw naked in electric lights
the night before I quit.
The rest were created to hang our possessions,
to keep us together, a temporary shift in space.
Got the only way of building the rickety structure at the time.
To hold the bag, to stand on the road,
to carry our luggage from place to place,
looking for a bus to ride us back
home to eternity where the heart was left
and stairwells here began.
Well, the bag is sitting by the counter
as the transcontinental bus pulls in.
The clock registering 12:15 AM, May 9, 1965.
The second hand moving forward, red.
Getting ready to load my last bus.
Farewell, Walnut Creek, Richmond, Viejo, Portland,
Pacific Highway, fleet Quicksilver got its engines.
One last package, just laying at midnight.
Picking up out of the coatrack, I, as a dusty florescent light.
The way they pay us is too low to live on,
tragedy was just a number, just for the poor sucker,
I am a communist.
Farewell, you Greyhound, where I suffered so much.
Hurt my knee, and scraped my hand,
and built my pectoral muscles big as a giant.