[Here's the next of B.N.'s poems. Enjoy!]
Fame & Fortune
He will take you by the hand, lead you to
to that promised land — Hank Williams
We can't remember,
where we went, what we wore.
Some place upstate, something woolen.
In this way we were famous
in this way we were fortunate.
You want to find a thing useless
and junked, a house
lovely and abandoned with windows
intact. What you want from women.
You have a greatness
in mind, believing the
ugly more deft, you say:
they are gentle and can foretell
futures in our hands.
It is like so many things
laid down and forgotten. The birds
smoky and peppered are dirt poor.
We wanted it like this, the land lightly
colored, the trees waiting to
run sugar. Is this
the way we wanted it?
B.N.
© to the author 1983-2009