The Pilgrimage, Book II / Phillip Neal Tippin
Part 31
If provincial
I’m allowed
To be “original”
How do I learn the last six years again—
Only better this time?
Don’t rush through those twelve dollars
Since reading is a toll road now, better
Go slow and become a conscious “per use” scholar
As money is not just food but language’s pater.
He learned to play the bodhrán too young,
For, when he’s tired of playing without a thought,
He’ll not deign to play what his hands and heart still long.
Part 32
When I get up and my attention walks across the room
The overpowering of the individual
Rain just enough
To wet the crust
And streak the cheeks
Of our poor, dusty creek.
Rain wet the lips of the land,
Open to hymn the gift given
Across the blue Lazarus chasm
The tender age of eighty
If pounding begins early
The Surfacing of Himself
Part 33
It is copy right?
To share on a leash
Every little thing I make up or confide,
Confident as long as I fill up the sheet
With stuff-things I wouldn’t think to hide.
Blood beads
A point to sheath
Not push
Remembering the point
Is not you
But something you grasp.
Waking up a ways away
All that cement we lay by
For a cold winter’s night
darklybrightpress.com 