Turncoat
They are tiresome to those of us, whose lives
Have passed to dreadful sameness, pecking our
Companions on their cheeks before we go to
Sleep: these lovers with their shining eyes
And searching hands and eager speech,
And we must squelch our urges to
Eviscerate them with the truth. "You'll
See, in time, that love is brief. It dies,
Then lingers only as the ghost of what it
Used to be, ' and, knowing this, we grow
Resigned to putting up with what we have:
Inertia, I suppose you'd say, as we no longer
See the good in being jolted by a thing so
Soon to ebb away.
But I am here, and look at me. Do my
Eyes shine? I cannot seem to keep my
Fingers to myself. I babble like an
Adolescent. Worse, you saw that, when
I saw you, I began to run your way.
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poem by Lawrence Beck
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Ten Thousand Feet from Home
Whatever else will come of this (and I'm convinced that nothing will) ,
The rums and Cokes have set my eyes to dancing as I stand out here,
With cigarette, beneath a moon which casts those peaks in ghostly
Light. It's Leadville once again, July, and I have come to see my
Cousins. I have come to peel away the puffy husk of life lived in
The suburbs, atmospheres below, and be as they prefer to see me:
Savage, as they are, and drunk, and, in a room upstairs is she,
Who rashly said she's make this journey. Her husk hasn't peeled
Away, and her face, face down on a pillow, drunk as mine, remains
So pretty, warmer, though, than all these peaks. I put my butt into
A can and haul myself, unsteady, upwards, to the room and to the
Woman who has come, but isn't conscious, and the bed beneath
The moon and these, most lovely, frigid peaks, to lay, a-swirl, at
Her side. Not much will come of this.
poem by Lawrence Beck
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Back to Puget Sound
I will admit I've learned, no, I've absorbed, the sullen firs,
The moss, the ferns, the dark and dreadful dripping sky,
The surging waters, sorrow, death, and, now, beneath
Your shallow sun and trees like lollipops and flat
Horizons, I am out of place, a bat among a cattle herd.
A thousand races crowd the shore, and babble sets
The mind aflame, but, here, a single voice prevails,
A dull and never-changing lowing, lulling those who
Hear it, and who make it, into mindlessness. The
Drone of God and country, and of whiteness, and
The certainty that things which are not these are
Evil, casts a pall across this otherwise absurdly
Cheery land. I love it here when only you are
With me looking out across this valley at the
Rippling fields, but all the darkness I absorbed,
The ringing in my ears that comes from never
Hearing foreign voices, force me, after all these
Years, to open up my wings and fly for home.
poem by Lawrence Beck
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Rattled
It's been a week since I spotted that elephant
Brazenly grazing just beyond my bed,
And it's been five days since the folks
From the hospital said they could help
Me, and I ran, instead, and it's been a
Weekend of terror, I tell you, from here
In this alley. The rodents can smell you,
And they, and their bipedal vermin
Allies like to lay siege to better-born
Souls, such as I, and I'm cold now
And frightened and would like a meal,
So I'm thinking of giving up. What
Would I feel if I said, 'Yes, sedate
Me, and show me what's real? '
Would my elephant leave me
For Africa's plains, and the rodents
Stop biting down into my brains,
And the white-wrapped erasers
Who'll haul me away promise
Candies and crayons to brighten
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poem by Lawrence Beck
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When I Retire
I plan to move to Mexico, to make
A little home among the natives,
Not far from the beach. I plan
To use the little money Uncle Sam
Will send to me to buy my rice
And beans and chicken, gesturing
To stolid venders in the public
Market, as my Spanish isn't very
Good. I'm sick of English, and of
This: a nation bellowing its
Greatness as it, as I, age and fade,
A hulking pauper, terrified of
Shadows, growing fond of showing
Cruelty to those, within, without,
It calls its enemies. I plan to doze
By crashing waves, to cleanse myself
Of this affliction: being an American,
And I don't see a senorita, or a worn
Senora, seeing any point in seeing me.
I'll plod each day from home to beach,
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poem by Lawrence Beck
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Must We Succumb to Metaphysical Incompatibility?
Ah, my dear, your greatest flaw, perhaps
Your only flaw, as you are sweet and kind
And flat-out gorgeous, is your retrograde
Belief in some great being in the sky
Who knows our thoughts and judges us,
And intervenes from time to time, in
Person or through winged proxies, in
Our ordinary lives in order to enable us
To do right and to, thus, be saved. From
What? , I wonder. After all, if this guy
In the sky is omnipotent, as you say he
Is, then from what does he try to save
Us? Him? He can't be very nice. And
I, of course, as I have said, have never
Seen much point to him, or evidence,
If truth be known. The universe is
Clicking gears, its little creatures, you
And I, are processes, and nothing
More, and, as I maul you in the
Evening, as I softly scoff at what you
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poem by Lawrence Beck
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