Walt Whitman’s ready nearby
Walt Whitman’s ready nearby
tucked among authors
I keep on my night stand
for the waking of my
night eye
…………………..
You can see him in a drawing
I did years ago
still stacked while others
cycled in & out of this small
proximate collection
like many million moments
that have blindly come and
slid by
Yesterday I found a poem
which said well some things
I’ve thought as days have
gone by;
…….;…from Whitman
of the subject he so expertly
unravels and so surely
pins and spins and
re-ties
And I should mention
tears since this morning
without reason I
………………….had a sudden sob-fest
returning from the dump
after dropping off our rubbish in
my weekly, sloughing,
drive-by
It might have been the singer
in the dashboard or
the adolescent female sadly
postured, walking,
plying the left shoulder as I
whizzed by
………………(—a shade of my granddaughter?
or— who knows what existential lever
I’d leaned upon too deeply in a
steep sigh?
by Jim Culleny, 7/26/09
Night Table; drawing by Jim Culleny, 1997
Blink 