Limits of Influence

Whitman didn’t go to Harvard –
had a rag-tag family –
never looked like he’d been barbered –
spewed his passions handily:

sometimes I will sit down with him –
glad to be next to a fan
as I am of sweat, and jism,
flesh, testosterone and man –

but I can’t take too much of him –
all his lengthy catalogues –
soon I want a new touch: love, whim,
cadence, meter, travelogues

colored by her realms of Soul –
Dickinson’s dance through the night –
hymnal prosody made whole –
full of freezing light, and fright –

‘til her language breeds a madness
in a mind as slight as mine –
and I seek a different gladness –
comprehensible design –

Auden? maybe; James? perhaps –
Kipling has become a friend –
I climb to, and from, their laps –
still can’t find the proper end –

don’t have much left in my coffer –
few fruits hang down from my tree:
wonder if some other author
might resolve the mystery.



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