Brian Purdy Poems

A poem is admission
Of confusion
And being what it is
Excites derision;
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Forty years I trudged
And had no answers;
A mind that was at sea
And heart unanchored.
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Fewer creeks
blacker starlings
fewer home-made killing-jars
...

On tin-can creek
where I stayed long
the woodsy mist
made up for wrongs
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You slugs, you sloths, you worse
Than insensible things,
Who will not do as is so
Urgently needed - how
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As a boy, alone, with a crayon you wrote
On the walls of your room. Now, you wail
Silently, so that others don't hear;
Bellow and moan on the page of your mind
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Bring fire-flies to the wedding feast
Cast your spell on the rough-coat beast
In the quiet where the crickets sing
One word changes everything.
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Puzzled, I am
By the tepid response
Of those on whom I depended.
Must I walk alone this moonlit path
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we two are old
pleated by cares
but still can mount
proud passion's stair
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Half-pint perch in sunlit water
Chase their shadows above the rocks.
A fisherman chews a cigarillo
Light brown in a darkly-golden face.
...