Perry Thompson

When I Was A Farmer I Carried


Daytona Beach, 1964



When I was a farmer I carried dirt in my pockets
and roots and pieces of the sky that I cut with sharp
instruments from rooftops.   At a whisper the tenderest
and most april branches opened over barns like the legs
of a first lover.  I kissed the earth with grandfather
shoes gathered from  old trunks in the attic while the spider's
beard brushed my fingers.

When I was a city boy I carried
windows in my pockets,  high windows that never open.
I blamed the tops of cities and stale perfume for my
longing, bent over old music boxes straining to hear
the rusty notes,  bathed with a woman on the forty-seventh
floor.

Now I walk on beaches and dream
of old treasure chests rising to the surface of the
ocean.  I live with salt and fluids that brother the
stars and I'm confounded by only two things -- the inland
and the open sea.  

Coastal people are the ones who do all the waiting.

INSENSITIVE POET


for friends John and Chuck



He walks along the street
clicking like new shoes.  He
tries for careless and cool.

He has been monkeyed out of Heaven
by littlegirl charms and trademark hearts,
but he comes here now like the first lad
who ever heard the city laugh --

insensitive
oversexed
drunken

He belches loudly then
knocks on your door.