The Stranger

I drove for days. People define themselves
by churches, honestly believe
they will rise in the air at some point.
Their children struck me and themselves as crazy.
I sought hope in their love of dinosaurs.

Eventually stopped on the west slope
of the last mountains. Signs
were few but adequate:
good coffee, fewer churches, emphasis on salad.
Some old books fading in a window.

To go on . no. I couldn't face all that.
I didn't want opinions, or even art.
Only a room over a dead garage,
the rent voluptuously low,
a prison-surplus mattress and a view of dryrot.

There is no life without an archetype:
Beckett's witnesses of nothingness,
Hamsun's wasted sophisticate
in the boondocks, the Steppenwolf.
Young men, some critic said, in old men's drag,

the only ethic silence,
no pity, involvement or self-pity .
But a divorcee at the coffeeshop,
a weaver mad with goddesses,
seduced me into rage

and a dying hippie up the street
spouted dated mysteries
and hopes till the past came out.
We drank in shared contempt and listened to music:
"You can throw it all away."

Dearest, why did you dream that I would leave you?
I never will. And why in your dream did I say
that I had somewhere to go, something to do?