draft/worksheet of unfinished poem

*

Since I caught the train at Le Depot de Big Bang

(wow, was that terminal crowded) how far have

I traveled is a question that occurs to most of us

on this journey, I think.  The other passengers

seem to agree though as always one can't speak

for all.  You can lean out the window and catch

Philip Larkin on his wedding Whitsun or similar

fictions in this ongoing card-spray of multiple

universes, each one splintering off if we sneeze

perhaps, heading out on its own branchline of

destiny.  The rails never end theoretically.  Each

nitwit aboard here can flick their wrist and start

a whole molecular new-load of shunt and offshoot,

a freight of filth and fulth.  No one seems to know

for sure.  Take me for example: Homeless mote,

at how many borderkneels, constant-contagious

as Chuck Berry's riffs have I stormed evenings 

gnawed with gauze on the Island of Palau (these

particulars are obscene, I realize: forgive me),

or worse, dawns of emaciated car-thief silences.

Was there nothing I looked against to fail?  While

every possible mixamanque of worlds and words

await the arrival of this choo-choo whose ETA

they say might be never.  Subatomic or subtle-

arced, Graham Greene Virginia Woolf bunkmates

on the Orient Express.  I wish.  All permutations

could exist as possibilities expressing our due

desires if desires can be due, if they have a time

schedule and destination to which they might

be late as one resort.  Vacations are a nightmare,

yes, but consider this: if we do arrive at that spa

where Szymborska and Chekov are soaking in

the restorative baths featured there, the water

so warm and mineral-new, so magma-medicinal,

poured out from the heart of the sun as it were,

could we really be happy in that serene shangri-la,

knowing it's just one of the endless encounters

and encoutrements available on this route, whose

contentment quotas lack specificity or spinach

(I like it, some don't) enough to satisfy each our

particular tastes.  In any case given my age they'll

soon take my seat and burn me for fuel back

in the corpse caboose, my flesh will inch this

dust even further in permutations and perverse

meanderings and yet, always, despite the threat

of climax I thought my concerns were shared

by all those sold the rare, the indiv'd miracle of

birth, origin tickling its boarding passes and ports,

old option of blood we wake badly toward.  No
wonder everyone likes to imagine they know
certain actors and actresses whereas in reality

such legendary tidbits function chiefly to delay

our sense of arrival, stalled always by the urge

to record each mile traveled, the captain's log

kept so merchant-mundane its rigged citations,

though history probably shuffles the deck daily
to see who's here and who's not: enemies all.

///