Edward Dorn: Gunslinger Book 1; Auto-Destruction.

      But yet my Gunslinger

in his steady way deliberated

on the scene before us----Note

he said

that confusion.

I did.

What do you see

he asked.

Men fighting I answered

Is that all, he asked

Do you want the details

I asked

Don't be evasive he replied

What is the principle of what

you see.

I was hard put to understand this

I tried.

The principle, I said

is leverage. Not quite

the Gunslinger rejoined,

that is the mechanism

I asked for the principle.

Yes you did, quite plainly

said I

But I am afraid I----

Never mind he said,are these

men men.

Yes I answered on the heated margin

of that general battle

Is my horse a horse? he continued

I'm on that score not sure

I said.

Your horse seems different

from these men.

Quite right

but that's not altogether

what I am getting at. Here

he said, passing me the cigarette.

I think, he added

of taking you to Las Vegas.

Then you aren't going

to Boston. Not now he

exhaled, fresh distortions

as you yourself heard

have reached my ears.

Uh-huh I managed to exhale.

    Thus we sat and still

I knew not the principle

of which he spoke.

STRUM, strum

        Then there was an interlude

in which the brawl before

our indented eyes went on.

Auto-destruction he breathed

and I in that time was

suspended

as if in some margin of the sea

I saw the wading flanks

of horses spread in energy

pages 18-20  edward dorn Gunslinger 1&2  Fulcrum Press 1970

tags: edward  dorn  american  america  poet  poem  poetry  epic  beat  gunslinger  auto  destruction  

links: technorati