Midnight on the Parthenon : July in San Francisco

A white porcelain horse with no legs
A Christmas ornament, bright red, plumed bird,
Headless on my desk…
The broken things of my life, my father,
My oldest brother, who I adored,
Gone to death, playing lightly at the edge of temperance,
Me, unable to spell after over sixty years --
No language but the recast English of a slum kid with a Ph.D.
No French, no German, no Spanish,
Except conversational phrases for conversations
That never take place,
The mornings alone for almost twenty years,
The silent telephone,
The petals in the stream,
Current flowing to a long ocean I never visit,
Darkness at seven and eight o’clock,
The lasting hold of winter
In a land that has no winter I can recognize,
The singer in the distance, the wasted land
Out there in literary land in the land of lamps
And echoes and padlocks on barn doors, scents and visions and spirits
That do not know their own names
While I have only one desire this morning:

I find it interesting that when I posted this poem here I left off the last two lines of the poem I post on Home Away From Home Poetry a few moments ago, but I find both versions work for me.

curiouser and curiouser.

amo,

Peter