Moving West

The attempt to move west

Ends on the dry page

Meeting these words

And whatever loose map

The syntax scrawls

The journey is perpetual

Without punctuation

Only the places where lines

Stop

or the mind

Pauses at crossroads

Stunned feeble

By choice

Every road becomes

The one not taken

(We back and fill

With allusion)

And of course

There should be passion

That show of feeling

When feeling snaps

Across the page

With asterisks

But the words refuse

Feeling is there with you

Inject some and make

The poem move west

With its own cutthroat

Manifest destiny

You can fill in the dead

You can supply the sweat

And even color in

The crazed eyes of the farm wife

With only one word

She never stops speaking

Alone Alone Alone Alone

Go on saying it

Until the whole wilderness

Of language falls around you

And then we will be together

There moving west

To clear our heads of words

In the ice of the Pacific