These next poems are called "Madman Songs."
They don't have titles.
They're just numbered 1 through 7.
I guess they're are kind of spiritual autobiography.
People go home to rest in vaults.
Curtains sue their faults.
Bright windows show their money.
I hated home.
It caused me pain.
Cloudy days and evenings came.
I leaned against the iron rain.
Someone held me.
There was harm.
Now each word's an alarm.
The man who looks so calm will turn into a bomb.
Woman, daughter, son, I wake up and put them on.
They hide me from the law.
My desire is a blade of grass I trample as I pass.
Fear me, what I hate will fall.
In summer, small cones of dirt beside a fence
erupt with the weddings of the ants.
A moth staggers from a shrub.
People turn their sprinklers on to watch the water girls
dance on their lawn.
I don't go out until they've all gone in.
They might come near with large damp wings, love
and other things.
When I don't sleep the crickets weep.
When I say my life will pass, they scrape the dark glass.
When the wall begins to fall where I strain,
they file the chain.
When I rise I wear an orange shirt,
a green woman is rinsing her skirt.
She imagines me.
David's gone.
Goliath strong.
Flocks of pebbles bleat.
Their little cries of light fade where the leaves lie.
Dry harps near a stream.
Jacob warmed the rock.
The rock and Jacob dreamed.
I'm burning.
I'm alone.
Everyone's a stone
I break my feelings on.
I sat on the sidewalk with my own box of chalk,
and all day long
I made the whole world by myself.
That's not the world, they said.
Then I rose at dawn.
I put a label on.
It wore me out by noon.
All day I swung a brush to see the buildings bloom.
Just painting on a wall won't change a man at all,
or make the stone turn blue.
So I sat down once more, what else could I do?
People go home.
Twilight's a glass through which they pass.
The carver comes his arm and leaves his passion
in the grain.
The one who ran runs back
again. We live in pain. The moon's an aspirin.