This is a-- well, I don't really know
whether some of these poems are political poems or not.
In some ways, all poems seem to be political poems.
But this is a poem "To Gary--" Gary Johnson--
"--At the Threshold of The House."
Among other things, the first day of Pisces, his birthday.
It's a birthday poem.
Gary Johnson, young poet, Fresno.
Good friend of mine.
At the time I wrote the poem, he was in some torment.
The government was after him, the army.
He had a wife, pregnant wife.
He finally got out of it.
He convinced them he was crazy and of no use to them.
But at the time, he was trying to decide whether to go to jail
or go to Canada.
Amazing thing.
So many people came to this country
from Russia, and Poland, and Germany, and countries.
And they came here to escape the draft.
Wow.
Not to have to go in the army.
"To Gary, At the Threshold of the House."
Again, the rain thundering on the tin roof,
an avalanche of pebbles.
Rain fallen for weeks and weeks.
The drowned fields can't hold anymore.
Thousands of little rivers run through the woods
up here, plucking old strings, making new grass.
Soon it will be the time of the blue-eyed grass,
the time of the red bud, and the red maid.
Already the crimson head of the snow plant,
a hard cock butts through the membrane,
pushes aside black crumbs of Earth, breaking into light.
On the shoulders of cow trails, the dead turn over again.
Wherever you go, your son is yawning in Anna's belly.
Hard to believe they could want you now.
That swamped, listing, table load of red wattle judges,
cadavers, undertakers, tight car dealers, doctors,
well-to-do butchers spouting that incomprehensible bad
poetry, running down ghostly corridors in their glad rags,
flapping like the freaky echoes of some bad trip,
crying all night.
Gary, it's time to plant your blood flowers
in the hump of Asia and other wild things that
make you laugh.
I see you.
I see them walking round and round where you sit naked.
Lotus slowly dissolving in unearthly smiles.
Unmoving.
Bringing everything to bear on the instant of birth.
What can they take away?
Your fancy, white belt from St. Vincent de Paul's?
A pinch of Panama red?
Palm books?
Shoelace?
Your cowboy shirt?
Your golden hair?
Your big, homemade mandala?
They can take you from this prison
and put you in that prison and say, it's time to suffer now,
Gary.
And swing locked the heavy echoing doors
and walk away, leaving you all your possessions.
Wildflowers on wet breasts.
Silken threads.
The silence buzzing, unceasing after vibration
of some great bass string.
A sound you were waiting for.
The stars caught in a net of twigs,
glimmering in the darkest meat of your brain.
And you're already halfway through the door and away.
The door standing open.