Thursday, 11 February 2010

"All I want to do..."


.

File:Johnson 1920 HighPlains.jpg






All I want to do
is to go
back to
Pueblo
and let the wind blow
right through me
in the parking lot
by the Trailways Depot





http://www.angelfire.com/al/silverball/A-6.jpg
High Plains buffalo wallow, shallow depression in level surface of country underlain by the Oglalla formation, 1897: photo by Willard Drake Johnson, from US Geological Survey, 1920 (USGS)
1940s Continental Trailways bus depot sign: photo via Forever Trailways Memories
at

10 comments:

  1. TC11 February 2010 at 10:26

    Ed Dorn said of this poem, "When it gets down to the haunting necessities of the mind [it is] beyond any explanation. A masterpiece of uncontrollable want."

    (Ed had a wonderful sense of humour.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. human being12 February 2010 at 13:07

    All I want to do
    is to go
    o
    n

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mariana Soffer13 February 2010 at 01:37

    I really like the poem, it is so simple and clear, almost transparent, direct with no in between.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ~otto~13 February 2010 at 04:24

    I will echo Mariana on this. Simple, beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. TC13 February 2010 at 04:25

    hb,

    My sentiments exactly, at this point.


    Mariana,

    Thank you for getting this. The directness, the clarity.

    There are I suppose times and places in which mediation is appropriate.

    But this time and this place would probably not be among them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. TC13 February 2010 at 04:26

    Otto,

    You snuck in there without my noticing, geezer that I am.

    I love your echo.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bob Arnold / Longhouse17 February 2010 at 06:21

    Tom,

    I had to see a week go by before I could say what I felt then — this is a gem. I don't believe, though, like ED felt, it is "uncontrollable want". I feel it is sure and knowing, and it could only be sure in that presence, still in you, of the wind. It's stark and opulent at the same time. Revolving standingstill.

    Another poet, Ed Markowski, one with a good eye and feel, went to your site after I pointed in that direction and wrote back this morning his joy for the Trailways poem. Here in snowland this morning I nodded looking out at all the new snow from yesterday and said to myself, "Self — that is what has been inside you all week, Tom's Trailways poem."

    Been there, done that, want to do it again.

    It's alive.

    (signed) Rat Killer

    ReplyDelete
  8. TC17 February 2010 at 07:08

    Bob,

    Now it can be told. That big circular slump isn't a buffalo wallow, it's where the Huge Rat landed.

    ReplyDelete
  9. John Macker19 February 2010 at 14:31

    a masterpiece of desolate virtuosity.
    when in Pueblo, do as the winds do.
    bravo.


    John Macker

    ReplyDelete
  10. TC19 February 2010 at 22:52

    John,

    Yes, desolation gets it. You know that place.

    No resisting that wind.

    Thanks again.

    ReplyDelete