College: For Love Of ________ Poem by Brian Johnston

College: For Love Of ________



In a house by a highway by a railroad
Eyes open to a self-set sleep-destroying buzzer
That waking mind impudently pretends
To ignore.
Penetrating the window barrier
The air conducts a heavy diesel lullaby.

Over wealthier suburbs slips a transport,
Supersonic, though no sweeter music,
For rich and poor alike a boon to sleep;
Heard only by more wicked insomniacs
For whom the watch's competent hum is a dirge.

Descending in a shower of metallic disintegration
Three men ignite the atmospheric blindfold, survive,
Do not plunge white-hot into the sea, a common meteor,
But drift coolly down on nylon wings
To the waiting Carrier of the 300 lb. Angelfood.
The mind shrinks

From the prospect of that confrontation,
From the phallic disruption of Christian paradise,
Then cries,
'Oh, let there be nothing on earth but leavings,
Nothing but star-ships on a photon sea…'
Now begins man's search for a Southland.

Yet, as light passes venetian blinds,
Like music through classical guitar strings,
Touching the softened form of familiar Love,
The rods of the eye wander adagio
Along the bars of a century-old sight before rising,

'Dethrone the convict from electric eclipse,
Redress the squalid in disposable, dust-free clothing,
Release the lovers to their denouement…'
The earth womb trembles in the last pains
Of the dark hour,
Heralding man's difficult birth.

Sunday, November 17, 2013
Topic(s) of this poem: Nature
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
Brian Johnston
Graduate School OU (about 1969)

With apologies to Richard Wilbur whose poem 'Love Calls Us to the Things of This World' was the inspiration for my poem. Written in graduate school in Physics in an attempt to imitate his style. This is really my first 'Poem en Duo' though without Richard Wilbur's Permission I certainly could not publish our two poems together. It is a very interesting experience though I think, to read our two poems back to back. His poem can also be found on this site.
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