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Dour Journey
by Harvey Steinberg
Glued by gravity in thrusting Ford on dipping road,
in multiple dimensions of mind
spearing through suburban swards
toward river habitats again, the water band flows south
incising fifty sudden years ago
whose deep well of time remits its substance pail by pail.
Skewed plats of grainfields possessing as possessed
invade a farmer’s sweetest dreams season after season after season;
morning after morning dew-beaded stalks, like music’s signatures,
confirm the rhythms of the day to follow
until, unbidden — contemptuous of all that went before —
the word finis trails out
as destiny, not years alone,
transits to this white compelling holding page
tough as caustic gauze tightened on
a stiff-hipped flesh-drawn farmer’s 1950’s economic ache that
clamped his bones but not his reverence,
frayed his wife’s conceits but not her Sabbath morning
pure-voiced singing.
Now suburbia spreads its ivy patches green as clover crop,
azalea where alfalfa plumed; pink begonia blooms
accessorize a mammoth plastic daisy;
beyond the shoulder’s culvert ditch past verge,
sedge-hid and weather scoured,
a battered aged softball’s twine intestines leak.
Barren claims of farm exemptions edge this day.
Aging memory draws taut on either side
straight across where road descends
refracting woken dawn river’s moist mouth,
a kiss blown
a rumpled land
a semi-young man’s semi-old man’s
windscored cheek.
Harvey Steinberg
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Bio: Harvey Steinberg looks at himself as an artifact
of the world rather than the world as an artifact of himself. Harvey submits writings, and over 20 journals in 10 states
have published his poems, and occasionally other forms of literature as well. He is now writing theater works and
finds this to be the most fulfilling medium (some short pieces have been staged). He will ultimately work toward
the creation of quality verse plays and poetic drama. So although retired, he is not deterred.
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