12.04.2021

out of my mind at last

All those years 
I had in my pocket. 
I spent them, 
nickel-and-dime. 

The Pilot razor-point pen is my 
compass, watch, and soul chaser. 
Thousands of miles of black squiggles. 

Throw out the anchor 
unattached to a rope. 
Heart lifts as it sinks. 
Out of my mind at last. 
 
Some days 
one needs to hide 
from possibility. 
 
Fear is a swallow 
in a boarded-up warehouse, 
seeking a window out. 
 
So what if women 
no longer smile to see me? 
I smile to see them! 
 
Why do I behave so badly? 
Just because. That's still 
a good answer. 
 
Strange world indeed: 
a poet keeping himself awake 
to write about insomnia. 
 
After carefully listing my 10,000 illusions 
I noticed that nearly all that I found 
in the depths was lost in the shallows. 
 
If you can awaken 
inside the familiar 
and discover it strange 
you need never leave home. 
 
You told me you couldn't see 
a better day coming, 
so I gave you my eyes. 

The face you look out of 
is never the face 
your lover looks into. 
 
This slender blue thread, 
if anything, 
connects everything. 
 
At my age, 
even in airports, 
why would you wish 
time to move faster? 
 
On my desk two 
indisputably great creations: 
duct tape and saltine crackers. 
 
When I watched her hands 
as she peeled a potato, 
I gave up everything I owned. 
 
Oh, to be in love, 
with all five buckets 
of the senses 
overflowing! 
 
I hope there's time 
for this and that, 
and not just this. 
 
Come to think of it, 
there's no reason to decide 
who you are. 
 
Sometimes all it takes 
to be happy 
is a dime on the sidewalk. 
 
The moon put her hand 
over my mouth and told me 
to shut up and watch. 
 
I thought my friend was drinking 
too much, but it was the vodka 
that was drinking him. 
 
Come close to death 
and you begin to see 
what's under your nose. 
 
In our October windfall time red 
apples on frostbitten green grass. 
You learn to eat around the wormholes. 
 
Treasure what you find 
already in your pocket, friend. 
 
Today a pink rose in a vase 
on the table. 
Tomorrow, petals. 
 
[Jim Harrison {1937-2016}, from "Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry", with Ted Kooser, in The Essential Poems]

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