Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Katahdin

(Written between October 16-18; Completed October 20, 2015)

1
Flash by Lowell in the Autumnal dawn
            Pink blear of morning
Rush goes the mighty Merrimac
            In Kerouacian mist of pawtucketville ghosts
            Turn go the leaves
            rough characters at gray full up stations
            waiting on breakfast lines
            In rearview mirrors of the tired mind
Red Massachusetts lonely
Golden in the night
            Like earlier darkness of Philadelphia
North Philly streets
            Shrouded Stranger
            Appear in faraway view
Flows cracks on long ago pound streets
Mystery of flowing cape
Gray gray gray gray
Lurching
Phantom of mindless fear
Great death chasing
            Out of the past
Or hero of wandering fools
Regardless
            A great horror thing
            Lost in break light red
            Big northeast leering eyes
And finally left behind
Become nothing corporal
            Omen harbinger spirit herald
Portent
            Friend—


2
Snow on Katahdin
            False peak faced north
Obscured by foggy gusts of zero degree chill
And somehow this clears at night
            To star filled starry sky
Night night milky night &
            Milky Way rush of constellations
At midnight
Untied boots and thermals
            Standing in clearing
            In dim light years
            Behold! Moonless night
Coal black night diamond forged
And
            Thoreau wrote from Bangor
From foot to wheel to backpack
to Millinocket
To Katahdin to stream
            & where are the primal spirits
Rage over mountain top
Immemorial
            Crag of split rock & kaleidoscopic tree leaves
Of fall’s ebb
            Inimical & endless forests 
of the mind
            laid out
Spread unbroken to Kanady
            To artic to frozen circle
To grim desolate wastes
            Of tundra north


3
And in morning
            White skies
Icy hands
            Warm steam of mouth
Smoke of fire dawn
            Rustle of tents
Acrid scent of flame on my beard
            Ceaseless cascading stream
My dreams
            At 4am
As temperature dropped for snow
            Lift my lost kitten
            To the moon
            He is lost
            I am lost
Oh Night!
Thick on my eyes
Someplace long ago
            Voices telling me
            It was okay to let him go
Drift from summit rock slide
From bone of holy oly peak holy
            I am cradled in the night
            Fetal
            By icy root of tree


4
Root of tree
            Wreathed through wet ground
Bedded with leaves
            Twisting branches overhead
The tent
            Shrouded in its shadow
Final thought
And now morning of the mind
Awaken
Wakefulness
Task
            The first snowfalls on Maine hills
            At edge of trail end
There’ll be 8 inches or more
On mountain paths
            Whooshing waterfalls
Cough cough arctic lung
            Tip tap of large flurries
Weigh trees down
So leaves like windshield wipers
On car windows bend over road
            Baxter through Lovecraft
Lakes mist on lapping water
Pebbled shore
            Stark inky and gloom
            Heart of the northeast
            End of the world
            Millinocket Lake
            Off Blackcat dirt road
Not far from Togue Pond Twin Pines
Log cabin coffee at River Drivers
            Snow falls on
            Cold cold cold Maine
Morning
Lake effect
Swirling flurry winds
Gravel path from window
Fireplace
Katahdin invisible
Opaque whiteness
Great white north—


5
South in the October foliage on 157
            Medley at I-95 back to Bangor trek
The farthest reaches of
            Hi-way gore
To seek the Atlantic now
            Cap’n at the wheel
Light with ginger beer smells
            Old world puritanical spell
Carved wood at the
            Cross stitched lamp of the world
In motel now
            Tents clothes bodies eyes
            Too wet for another elemental night
Dry on the furnace of mankind’s
Innermost Acadia Gateway hotel
Caramel brown ale smell
            Ellsworth Trenton toothpick toothache
            Too true Trenton
Of no this isn’t New Jersey
But gauntlet to Bar Harbor Acadia cliff spill
In the Great North
            In bitter wind
            In winter’s great American shore
Come morning
            A brush across the bluest waves


6
 Blue waves
            Fishing boat fisherman’s life
Wool caps thick beards barrel chest
            Desolate but beloved distance
Beloved lighthouses
            Cut & cold hard
            Icy of heart
New England ah
            Call of gulls
Burn of engine fume
            Rock & mast
Red painted rails
            Cast against heaving sky
Glory sky
            My visions in the cool
            Blackness preceding sleep
            What sunrise would bring
            What next?
Silence
            Thunder
Tinder
            Silence
Churn
            Frush & rush
And undertow and all
Blear blast black port
Great hulking rocking bestial ships
            Silent aw silent
Mad—


7
Answer at sun-up
            Brings blue sky clouds vanish
Route 3 south
            Onto Mt. Desert Isle
Bar Harbor
            How it got it’s name
Who know? Who?
            Rocky beachhead
Shimmer under sunshine
            Without warmth
No time tho but to race around
            Start those tires roll engine roar
Chariot headed south
            Congested traffic hell of ole New York
            To bar our way
First a swing on 9 from 95 from 1
            Lobster rolls at Dock Square
End of Lanigan Bridge
Kennebunkport
And every town has a sister in Maine
Slapped port on the end
West Westport Northport Searsport Portland
            Slapped mayo or butter or both
            Grilled bread 1lbs Lobster shelled
Last day of the season
            Cold gray water
            Thick with coming winter
Scent of lemon salt water fishy scent
            Little shore towns
            Hidden from time
            All along bottomless
            US-1


8
From there now gone
            From here now going home
Day falling fast to our left
            On rushes the night 515 miles away
            Our mason Dixon mid-atlantic line
Rivers Delaware Susquehanna Anacostia Potomac
States MA Rhode Isle Connecticut New York
New Jersey PA Delaware MD
Pitch black is October night shift
            5am of morning slow crunch of time
Last days fresh
Fresh like the recent dead
Hint of decay
Memory fade
            Slide in the rearview
Alone now at destination point
Last dead drop my own
Each goodbye one less body of the whole
Of the host six souls one car one mountain
Whole of Maine
            Six directions they go
            Gabow V Tommy Joe Chase myself
I go mine
I go it alone but not alone
            Really
Toward what future may come
This is spring this is summer this is fall’s truest end
            Faced in directions south face north east west
To roam loam roam roam home roll flat burnt leaves
Vibrate soul soil soul legs hands heart wheel engine
Ancient stone forged trail in gray-like dreams
            Go Go North a vision a god a martyr Go
            Ka-Tah-Din    
            Ever always standing
            Shrouded
            Watching
Indomitable

No comments:

Post a Comment