Saturday, October 09, 2004
A Going Man
I watch him, dying an old
fashioned death
who has ever devised a unique
one,
slowly falling asleep in the abused
park of his imagination
the grass no longer green, the moon
muffled to an inveterate grey
the spirit kicked about from pillar
to post
a mendicant no longer wanting
anything.
When he made the sign to me
drawing his slim fingers across
his throat,
I knew what he meant - it is
finished - the gall blistering the
tongue
the foot too tired to step upon
another grain of earth.
Well beautiful man, for whom
I have nothing but love
what more is there to offer
but some little rests of smouldering
sleep
in the abused park of the imagination.
from 'The Collected Poems of Marsden Hartley, 1904-1943',
edited by Gail R. Scott, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, 1987
I watch him, dying an old
fashioned death
who has ever devised a unique
one,
slowly falling asleep in the abused
park of his imagination
the grass no longer green, the moon
muffled to an inveterate grey
the spirit kicked about from pillar
to post
a mendicant no longer wanting
anything.
When he made the sign to me
drawing his slim fingers across
his throat,
I knew what he meant - it is
finished - the gall blistering the
tongue
the foot too tired to step upon
another grain of earth.
Well beautiful man, for whom
I have nothing but love
what more is there to offer
but some little rests of smouldering
sleep
in the abused park of the imagination.
from 'The Collected Poems of Marsden Hartley, 1904-1943',
edited by Gail R. Scott, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, 1987
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