Vagrant Wind Poems by Bruce Campbell Walters

7/31/2019 Vagrant Wind Poems by Bruce Campbell Walters

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By Bruce Campbell Walters

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VAGRANT WIND

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CONTENTS

BiographyLike Father Like Son

Vagrant WindSuddenly He's Gone

My Apartment is Near the Airport

Ghosts

Theresa JodrayFor the Man and the Children She Left Behind

How to Write a Poem

Forgive Me PleaseHouse for Sale

Madame Pele

Uncle George’s FarmThis Tube

Civil War

Two Old Ladies & Ten Thousand JewsTo Helen

Passage

Crutches

We TalkedConcluding Sorrow

To Autumn

To CynthiaAirliner

How To

CityRomancing the Muse

Bobby Sees The Light

A Girl at Mickey's

DreamsThe Internet

Little David Smiled

The Prisoner's CellThe Freight Train Cometh

Ball Park Inn

From An Urban HighriseMy Dream

Vagabond

A Grainy Ceiling

Rudyard’s GirlWhat Did I Write?



VAGRANT WIND

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Moving to the TowerLost God

To My Friend Nancy

Sheryl From Woolworth Where I DinedForsake Me Not

Across the River StyxFully Grown, Fully DeadUprooted

Talking to Edna

Swan Song

Vacant EyesTHE BUG

Winds Amid the Grass

Melancholy DreamsJoining Uncle George

There's No Way Back

Just ListenTo My Beloved Charlotte

The Preacher Preached

Most Favored Nation

And To PhoenixFarewell to Kansas City

Death Angel

It's Final NowFragment from the Archives

Near Death

The Cat

1946 Morning in PhoenixDavid

Inevitably We Shall Say GoodbyeNote To My Therapist

The Millerites Beyond

Devil’s Reach

Death AngelAn Interesting Camel Story

Shekinah



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Bruce Campbell Walters

Bruce Campbell Walters was born in 1917, and grew up impoverished during theGreat Depression. He graduated from high school, won a scholarship in

journalism, and served as an editor for several newspapers. He enlisted in theArmy, served as a sergeant in the historic First Cavalry Division, where hereceived commendations for his horsemanship. He served the nation as a

military policeman and artillery instructor during WW II. A proud member ofI.B.E.W. Local 226 of Topeka, Kansas, he worked for many years after the waras a journeyman electrician in the Midwest on such projects as theintercontinental ballistic missile base system. He resided in Phoenix, Arizona,and Topeka and Lawrence, Kansas, and then in Kansas City, Missouri, where hepassed away at age 90 after saying that he had lived a good life, and wanted to

join Charlotte, his beloved first wife, who died of polio in Phoenix when he was ayoung man. Bruce Campbell Walters was also known by his pennames, R.B.C.Walters, and Ruth Walters.



VAGRANT WIND

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Like Father Like Son by David Arthur Walters

"Like father like son" is not the favorite cliché of sons who "have a conflictwith authority." Neither do they care much for the expression "have a conflict withauthority," which is a painful verbal reminder of their "need for discipline."

I suppose I was like every other rebel who thought he was being singledout for unjust discipline and who therefore took up Liberty for his cause. In mycase, since my father obviously loved fine literature, and since I did not knowwhat that was, my Liberty meant free speech. Ever since then I have been hellbent on saying any damned thing that comes to mind at the spur of the moment,anything at all that might please me, no matter how disturbing that might be toothers – the more shocking the effect, the more pleased I am. I recall how thrilledI was when I overheard someone complain to my boss, in regard to my firstbusiness letter, "How dare he speak to me this way! I have been in businessthirty years and I have never had anyone talk to me like this before!"

I did not realize in my youth that my father had also been rebellious fromtime to time, that he had been a revolutionary romantic and had, just for example,let the Calvary’s horses out of the corral to run free over the plain – all that was a

carefully guarded family secret. There is nothing like being poor in the GreatDepression and being a World War II veteran to discipline the savage beast in aman. It was a mystery to me how such a tough, stern-faced man like my dad,who was an Army boxing champion and who went on long marches over badterrain with a wooden rifle and rocks in his backpack because the Army wasshort of gear, could shed tears over some silly little poem. That defined him as asort of romantic, a knight-poet.

My father loved poetry. He was inspired as a young man to write poetry.However, having experienced the sudden loss of my mother, his belovedCharlotte, and thereafter being confronted with several dire exigencies, he put

aside his dreams of becoming a full time author and became an electricianinstead. And he was a proud electrician indeed. He often took me on tours of jobsites to show me the excellence of his craft. He sang the praises of the art ofpipe-bending, wire-cutting and -pulling and -splicing and hundreds of otherthings. He was a union man, and 'Union Made' and 'Made in the USA' were nobleemblems of the highest degree of honor. Now that I think of it, he had not reallyabandoned poetry: he was living it. For him his work was poetry in motion.



VAGRANT WIND

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Yes, he still practiced his rhetorical art in his electrical craft: He had hisrhythm and his rhyme and his meter according to the broader scheme of things,a scheme great poets have always associated with divinity no matter howmundane the details. All the elements of discipline were there to mold the temperof a tender-hearted, hot-headed Scot. And he kept his little poems handy at

home in a drawer, and in the wee hours at night that were his alone he wouldcorrect a word or two, and read grand literature to refresh his spirits. He was dulyimpressed by the Arizona desert in his youth. His favorite poem is the Rubaiyatby Omar Khayyam, and of course his favorite book was written by Lawrence ofArabia.

My father suffers from what I call the Orpheus Complex. His poetic themeis the ambition of his life, to either retrieve his departed wife from the other world,or to be forced to join her there as soon as possible given our conventionalprohibition against suicide. He rarely smiles, and he claims that he has not reallybeen happy since Charlotte succumbed to the Phoenix polio epidemic at age

twenty-two.

As for me, there was no way I was going to be like my father. I oftenprayed to my barely known mother, for she was my unconditional love, my oneand only deity. Poetry was not for me, nor was electricity and electronics. That allwent in one ear and out the other, like wire through the wall. Poetry andtransistors were equally obscure to me, all too mechanical as far as I wasconcerned. I was determined to serve the cause of Liberty, and far be it from meto define exactly what the effect of that cause might be. Wherefore I got up andleft my “home” town at age thirteen, to wander at random. I have not been“home” since, wherever that might be – how can one go home again when he

doesn’t really know what a home is?

I left town with my free speech. As the years went by, I learned to regulatemy prose somewhat. Although editors reject it as unsuitable for publication, I takesome pride in my progress. A professional writer recently gave me permission tobe a writer someday. Just imagine that! Be that as it may, the irony of notwanting to be like my father has dawned upon me as of late. It seems that, in myopposition to the very idea, the idea took hold of me and has wrestled me to theground. My resistance was just a different motion in the same general direction.

I did not take up poetry and electricity, but I literally picked up prose.

Literature grew on me, and soon became literally my greatest burden in life: Icarried two footlockers of books with me on the train from New York to SanFrancisco, along with a little bag of clothes. Lugging those lockers around townand up the steps of a flea bag hotel over a strip joint was a real drag. Since then,there have been several occasions when I have not moved away from badsituations for years because I had too many books and could not bear thethought of carrying my library along with me again, or just leaving my booksbehind. Lucky are those who need only one book; say, the Bible!



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Yes, there is nothing I like better than to curl up with a book. I like to readin bed, so I sometimes I wind up sleeping with a few books. And I just lovelibraries. Libraries are my churches. Reading is my religion. It is as if I want tomake up for all that time my father lost when he was on the job for twelve hours aday bending pipes and pulling wire, when his studies were reserved for those

wee hours of the night.

As for writing, it is my yoga. Writing is my prayer. Do I write to getpublished? Are you kidding? Who do you think I am? I am what I am, the son ofmy father, the rebel who planted the spiritual seed of rebellion against matter inme.

I suppose my literary fate is what some people call either a family curse orblessing. Here I am, yet another rebel of my family, having lived with my fatherfor only a few years, but very much like him after many more years interveningbetween then and now. There are differences in several respects; for instance, I

do not write poetry. After all, a camel does not have to pass through the eye of aneedle to get to an oasis. Nor does an inspired author need to be funneledthrough a sonnet to obtain to Plato's heavenly vault.

I do love to read poetry, but I do not read the sort of poetry one must learnto like just as one might eventually acquire a taste for Scotch whisky. I havelately been reading my aged father's captivating poetry. It seems free of formaldiscipline, yet it is disciplined. He has invested years in a few lines, rewritingthem over and over. In his old age, he will not part with his papers, meaning hispoetry, because, he said, his lines help him find out who he is. Absent thecommon rhetorical devices, the Muse has spoken, but with a great deal of his

help. His prose has the same inner coherence and tender quality as his poetry,an integrity that I do not yet understand. Maybe it is really all prose with aclassical sort of beauty that can be divided into a poem at will. In any case, howshould I know? I am no poet!

I have received a letter from my father. What is this? He is giving me alesson on the sonnet form. Oh, no! What is to become of me now?

Honolulu, HawaiiJanuary 2000



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Vagrant Wind

“Also this phenomenon I note:

When I write letters whose recipients

after several intervals of several months

answer and do not discourse on items I have raised,

or speak to questions that I ask,

but each--uniquely poised at central point

of each one's world--relates to me he saw a cloud,

or comments on a vagrant wind along the grass

where he resides.”



VAGRANT WIND

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Suddenly He's Gone

There's little I can say to Marshall now.

Suddenly he's gone, I don't know where.

Whether all he was is buried in the grave

Or if the truth and core of him survive

On some other plane and in another life

All I know is this: I miss him.

I miss you Marshall.

I remember you

And I miss you.



VAGRANT WIND

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My Apartment is Near the Airport

In the evenings and the afternoons,

And often in the middle of the night,

I hear the great planes land, and hear them leave,

Myself in bed as far from where they come and go

As that man Markham* knew who had a hoe.

How could the peasant of that former time foresee

That man would fly without having wings?

And how can I, not knowing God

Save by rumor, save by faith

Perceive His flight who in Himself is Light?

* Edwin Markham wrote The Man With The Hoe



VAGRANT WIND

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GhostsIf there are ghosts and when I'm dead

The house enfold in love

What becomes of what was me;

The family then in tenure apprehend

That though they own the house and have the deed,

My claim is not entirely moot.

The lady in the garden in the afternoon

Feels her slight hand as my own hand with hers

Tending to the flowers grown

From seedlings several generations past

Of flowers in the garden

While I was alive; and looking upward

We as ever see the trees, and clouds and sky above,

And hear together how the birds whose paths there cross

Each to the others call while on the wing.

Subdued and muffled if they are,

Are the sounds a ghost may make,

And little but a mist is what they form,

Not much perceived by those who dwell

In the comfort where my comfort was.



VAGRANT WIND

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Theresa Jodray

Psychic, psychic, psychic seer,

You stood upon the spot above

Where dear Charlotte lies,

And your photo via Internet

Caused my tears to flow.

But thank you, thank you, psychicseer,

For now you have confirmed

What sometimes seemed unreal,

That Charlotte was and Charlotte is.

Thanks for finding her.

Theresa Jodray found my beloved Charlotte's grave in Phoenix. At first a cemetery worker said Charlotte was not at that spot, but Theresa insisted she felt her there, and there she was, which the office later confirmed.



VAGRANT WIND

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For the Man and the Children She Left Behind

She walks through the world just passing time

A spirit longing for the man and children she left behind

Watching over all the people she knew

Sometimes she's been sad and sometimes blue

Sharing in their walk throughout this life

Watching all their trials with strife

She whispers softly in their ears trying to help them

She hopes they will hear

Watching her own children grow big and tall

When they left her body they were so small

Just a ghost of a woman from a different time

With a heart full of love for those left behind

She watches them closely as they sleep

Wondering will they know her when again they meet

She's seen their mistakes, if they only knew

She's always been with them when her life was through

So she walks through the world just passing time

A spirit longing for the man and children she left behind.

by Theresa Jodray

Charlotte Walden, wife of Bruce Campbell Walters, suddenly succumbed in 1946 to the polio epidemic in Phoenix. She left behind her daughter from a previous marriage,Oveta, whose father was killed in World War II, as well as Bruce and their sons Pat and David. Pat died in his youth. Bruce, born May 6, 1917, died August 30, 2007



VAGRANT WIND

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How to Write a Poem

The Phd's instructive tome

Describing how to write a poem

Is really not my cup of tea.

In fact it vexed me so

I asked for its review

From an expert lady I knew,

A major in philosophy

Who has written poetry,

And this is what she said to me:

"Halls of learning can't contain

The fiery heat of love and pain

Of those who practice to attain

Poetry's true purity"



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Forgive me Please

"O look, O look, my Love,The sunrise is in the east."

She sees it not, her little handIs ice beneath my hand.The face I kiss is gray.

"Forgive me please, good nurse, good nurse,My Love is leaving me."

(At the hospital with my beloved Charlotte).



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House for Sale

The fertile soil was the love from which they came,

But now a drought is in the land--

The trees are barren and the fields lay bare,

The laughter of the children in the house

Are vague echoes now, and nothing more;

They did what their youth required,

They left, and in a little while

Their parents died.

The house is host to spirits and to ghosts--

Who wants to buy an empty house?



VAGRANT WIND

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Madame Pele

Madame Pele, I've come here

From Mainland U.S.A.

And I see in awe within your fire

The angry heart of you.

I fear not, though, when late at night

I walk to where you are.

You've been kind to travelers who

Behold you in your Truth,

Thrusting up and thrusting up

Forever to the sky.



VAGRANT WIND

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Uncle George’s Farm

If he had eyes as once he had,

He'd plainly see his farm,

But now his eyes are gone,

His heart is stopped, his flesh decays,

And George's farm cannot be seen

Unless through the eyes of those

Who mount the hill and tend the grave,

And tending, therefore see

The farm he owned still fertile on

The valley floor below.

The land survives, the grain still grows,

George's heir now owns the field.

An afternoon arrived

When George's niece moved through the graves.

I had a thermos and remained behind

And heard a tractor, heard its voice

Rising from the valley floor.

George is in another sphere

Consorting there with other peers,

And I'm assigned to live my life

In solitude and lonely years.



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This Tube

This tube I have is not at all

Like fancy ones some people have:

The wide ones come with full color

And are controlled by buttons from across the room.

I bought mine at K-Mart eleven-years ago;

It's a 17-inch Zenith, black and white;

It's Warranty expired long ago

Yet it still serves me from time to time.

By its own whim, sometimes it works

And some times it does not.

When it dies I'll be deprived

Of seeing Ted Koppel on the news,

And I won't know in what Satanic land this week

The planes rained death and destruction

On families shopping in the city,

Or where the butcher-doctors kill

Small babies in the womb.



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Civil War

Courage was the name of them

And, when they heard the talk of war,

They were champions of the Nation's cause.

However, now the day declines and many flags

Lie trampled in the field,

Wounded men with vacant eyes

Stare blankly to the void,

And Bobby Lee's most loyal friend

Is dying in his tent.

The doctors came, his family came

And this is what they said:

"Let us cross the river now

And rest awhile

In the shade of lovely trees."



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Two Old Ladies and Ten Thousand Jews

Two old ladies in St. Paul were so full of piety

They decided not to eat until God came to them

And by coming cause them not to die.

He didn't come, and the devotees expired,

One after eight days, the other after nine.

Well, I read once of Jews in ancient time

Who were clad in their battle gear

To fight the heathen. And then the Sabbath came

And fighting was forbidden.

They all were killed, ten thousand of them.

Where are they now? Where are the old ladies?

Why, they must be in Paradise,

Having pleased their God.



VAGRANT WIND

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To Helen

The songs I did so fear to sing

Shall rise as beauty in the grass

Above my grave.

Repair you then to where I'm lain

And meditate on who I was

And if sweet flowers grace the grave

Gather them unto yourself

And hold them to your loving heart

Until they, as I, suspire and die.



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Passage

The preacher's words, in cadence long,

Were like a muted empty song:

A dirge in essence, singing yet,

That I can't ever quite forget.

With tearful Mother at my side

I saw the crosses, brilliant white,

Each one above a corpse's site.

Another corpse arrived that day.

My dear Love had passed away.



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Crutches

Crutches leaning to the wall,

Be my friend and help me now;The woman who is called my wifeIs in the kitchen and she'll leave.Help me, help me, wooden friends,Help me go downstairs.The little girl and little boyLeft us long ago,And when the woman leaves,I'll be here all alone.Help me when I go downstairs,Help me lest I fall.

We Talked It would be nice if Nostalgia could portrayThat she and I had been working to resolve our problems.We talked.Indeed, we talked sporadically,For weeks and months we talked,But we each emerged, as in a Khayyam poem,From the same door wherein we went.Closer and closer the madness came,CLoser and closer my destiny and fate.

Then one day I was alone.And so have been to this very day.

Concluding Sorrow If the concluding sorrow in that houseHad not estranged me from it,I would love to wake againIn brilliant dawn so long ago,In Lawrence on New Hampshire Street,Where Two Thousand crosses it,With light of summer in the morning

Defining my solitary bedroom there,And none of the years since thenEver to have happened.



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To Autumn Rose

I wrote a lovely poem for you,And it was on my pillow when I fell asleep.

But in the night I dreamt of you

And tears fell to the page.

When I woke the little poem

Had washed away

And you won't get to see it.

To Cynthia

My virtual hand from cyberspace

Is going to let you go.

You held my little flower once

In a schoolhouse, in the hall,And magic love embraced us

Every year till now.

But I must let you go

Lest we die unaware

That karma has been served

And we linger on as spirits

In a schoolhouse, in the hall.



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Airliner

Airliner, leave,No words of mine nor errant thoughts deter thee,But my daughter strangely by thin wings borne,As they, to the morning Sun far over Kansas,Flash and reflect, flash and reflect,Flies to her own life.Loneliness and sorrow beset me,For the children, save for one last boy,Are all now gone.Turn back days, turn back, turn back.A little girl in sweet affection onceIn my house waited for her father, and he,With the world's business and imperfectionsEven then so great he dwelt alone,Neglected her.Is it over now?Is Time so relentless thatI cannot hold her small hand in mineBefore the plane departs,And say what my deeds denied her,That I love her?She in the years of her youth lives,And I look to the inevitable NightWhen Darkness forever holds me,And this heart and these limbs of my bodyAre to the Earth returned.Airliner, now thy wings in the light sky flyWith her forever from these old eyes,And she has not heard me sayThat I love her.



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How To

Poets are a different breed,

And many live with broken hearts

Whose blood that pours therefrom

Mingles with most bitter tears.

O Poet, when you pray begin to sing

And when you sing begin to pray.

Pray and sing through somber night.

Your voice will tire. Your voice will tire.

Walk to where your desk resides,

And write until the dawn arrives.

The atmosphere may part for you

And Poetry descend to you.



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City

City, city, far from home,

I'll walk your lonely streets today,

Thinking of that city where

My Love was lain to rest.

Walking, walking in your streets,

I remember. I remember

My Love is gone. My Love is gone.



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Romancing the Muse

Senior partner, Muse of mine,

The chance has come to us

To speak of what we've seen,

Of Universe and Megaverse

And Heaven and of Hell.

I shall write the words of it

And you'll compose each verse.

The Truth descends to where we are

And we ascend to Truth:

Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive

And let pure love prevail.



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Bobby Sees The Light

Doctor Corkinstein,

I won't be needing another three-day pass. I just got back from the one today.When I got home, I just sat there on the same old couch and watched the sameTV. Everything's the same there. One night my father came home with a floozy.And like always my mom was mad as hell. When they were fighting beer gotspilled on the couch and on the rug, and they made me go out for more. Doctor,these are my family which made me crazy. Your nurses are so nice to me, andsometimes you talk to me like maybe I'm a human. I want to stay in themadhouse. It's so peaceful here. If you don't have room for me, can you get me abus ticket? Maybe I can start over somewhere else.

Sincerely,

Bobby Ward Nine



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A Girl at Mickey's

She said she is a budding author:She said she is a journalist, and we talked awhile:She has not read the Iliad or the Odyssey,Nor has she read Omar Khayyam or Emily Dickinson,Or Ludwig or Carlyle,

And she has no knowledge of the glory daysof Greece, Rome, Persia, Great Britain.She has not heard of Baha Ullah or Abdul Baha,Of Elijah, Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, or Keats,Of Colonel Lawrence, Darwin, Freud,Of Philip with the eunuch at the lake,

Of Thomas when he placed his headOn the place the spear had pierced.Of what can this girl write?Will she later have expertiseIn how to have a baby and tell us about it?Will she live to that day of lonelinessThree score years from nowTo speak of broken hearts and broken dreams

And death of hope?May God forbid.If there her future lies,Let the night come for her now.Let the tomb take her when her eyes are bright

And her skin radiant, her laughter sweet,Her beauty as the beauty is in thoseWho were only yesterday children.Please bless her God,

And never give her much to write about.



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Dreams

We together, love of mine,

Dream the Dream of life.

Dreams die, my love, they die.

But in the wings still other Dreams

Await their destined cueTo walk out into view



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The Internet

My heart lies wounded on the page

So they may by the Internet

Take small bits of it for every hit

At ten cents for each pop.

Fingers, fingers, numb with age,

Push the bitter pen

And write of it, and write of it

For ten cents every pop



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34

Little David Smiled

The priestly words the priest intoned,Computing nothing to my ears,For they were tendered null by stimuliMy eyes were forced to see,Beginning with my mother's faceSo tranquil so long,Transformed into a face of grief,Flooded with her tears,

As we somehow stood before A wide expanse of tended grassUpholding on its breastCrosses white in perfect rows,Each one above a grave.

And, as gratuity from Hell An open grave, too near, too near,Eager for to hold the dear

And unflawed form of CharlotteSans breath of life and flow of blood,

Yet lovely in her youth.In every dismal hour that nightThe skies exuded rain,

And in the very dark of themHer lonely spirit rose

And, through the path of love we shared,

Each to the other known,Found her way back home.Spirits have no way to speak

And lack substantial form,But, as the leaves of Autumn danceWhen Autumn breezes flow,Papers trembled in my handWhen her presence passed my chairRevealing that she was there.

And little David smiled.

He woke not from the peace of sleep.But little David smiled.



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35

The Prisoner's Cell

The prisoner's cell has windows, And she can look out on sunny days And see the children on the grass. And, when the wind is rightShe hears them as they play.My attorneys forget me. The judge who sent me hereHas no reprieve; the GovernorGoverns, and has no pardon on his desk Entitled: "Ruth, let Ruth go free."I am locked, embraced, and secured

As by the maiden walled with knives

In other dungeons, other times: Iron MaidenSlowly, slowly, by day, by night,Compressing, confining, working to my death.But my cell has windows.I can see, can hear the children:Out to recess, 10 A.M.How they do play; how they run and scream

And laugh. And all I can think the while I dieIs this: I have never been a child.

Note: Iron Maidens were used during the Spanish Inquisition. They were upright coffins lined with knives. The coffin was slowly closed, piercing the occupant until he recanted or died.



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The Freight Train Cometh

The sound of me beneath the sky

Continues via Doppler

In the valley where the river flows,

And I already am beyond.

Hear me, hear me say goodbye,

I already am beyond.



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37

Ball Park Inn

The loss of a friend and family I have mournedFor all these ten years past, and I don't knowIf I left them or they left me,Only that they diminish to the past and no tearsOn graves or letters to the living bring them back.So I came here,Stood on the balcony at Ball Park Inn,And watched the traffic and I thought,They know me not and none shall know meUntil the final day, and then I'll learnIf greater life and love exist in the KingdomOf the Thousand Years.Then from the stream of cars a silver one emerged,A woman in it driving, her hair is blonde,And she has been my friend as gifts fromHer travels tell me, and greeting cardsAnd kindnesses and thoughtfulness.So I tell God I was ungrateful,I am sorry, forgive me.I have a friend in interim until I see Your face.Hers is reflected light and I know You areBecause she is.



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38

From an Urban Highrise

From an urban high rise:

Water drips from bursted damsAnd blood from injured hearts.

In this long nite in wondrous flite

A plane in the sky,

The amber lights like parts of stars

Swiftly coursing by.

Plane, great plane, I weep for thee,

Weep for the souls en route in thee.

Plane, dear plane, do fly, do fly.

Dear plane, to Phoenix fly.

Of all the persons borne by thee

Or other planes or any train

Or those in vessels on the sea,

Not one will know that I am me,

That I am here and am me.



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39

MY DREAM

This Dream that is my dream

Approaches to its end,

While the dreams of others,

Still in the wings,

Clamor for their cues.

Let them claim the stage today

And I will walk away.

Hurry, hurry, dreams to come,Enter to new life,

For I am old and gray today

And I will walk away.



VAGRANT WIND

40

Vagabond

Vagabond, vagabond

You'll weep tomorrow

When by dint of U.S. Mail

You'll learn your dad has died

And no one thought to let you know

Before they stashed his august form

Beneath the grass.

Heaven shall see, on some tomorrow soon,

How you weep again

When the ancient trunk arrives

Containing the Western shirts and ties,

And Stetson hats and fancy boots

For you to wear. (They did at last recall

How near to him in size you are).Dear Vagabond,

When you're in Phoenix in December,

Find his old wife and ask her, ask her

Where your father lies so quiet

Stashed beneath the grass.



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A Grainy Ceiling

There's a gargoyle on the ceiling of my room,

And a pixie dances there.

Danton's massive face appears

And the face of Robespierre

And half a Minotaur.

When I'm no longer here,

Lie upon my bed awhile

And let your visage stare

Upward, upward, past the roof,

Beyond the harpy with long hair,

Beyond the atmosphere

And past the stratosphere,

And see if I am there.



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42

Rudyard’s Girl

She was, as Rudyard's native girl,

A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair.

But now that she has left

I see her everywhere

And hear her voice at night,

Like music in the air.



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43

What Did I Write?

I wrote a lovely poem for you

Before I fell asleep,

And it was on my pillow.

But in the night I dreamed of you

And tears fell to the page

And in the morning when I woke

The poem had washed away.



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44

Moving to the Tower

The wounds that brought me to this placeWere wide and deep and to such extentIt was not certain I'd survive.But now, in residence, I'm safe,The door slammed shut and windows barred.Let the heathen howl unto the moonAnd drool and slobber in the yard.I'll heal here if the Mighty OneWho walks among the Stones of FireInspires me so I therefore writeOf things that were and things that areAnd things that yet must be.



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45

Lost God

They have slain my God.They, with their scienceand their reason,and investigations,the men with yardsticks,who found traces of fish,the useless fins,the outgrown wingsin men,have taken away my God.they have slain him,and buried him beneaththeir streets;his last wild notehas flown from the leaves;the leavesno longer know his song;the woodshave lost the last laughter,the last faint echoof the voices,the stream-like singing,of his nymphs.And his poolby the sea,where the sweet salt-encrusted flowersused to stoopto stare upon themselves,where is that?They have rolled theirwise heads that holdthe skeleton of space, and laughedupon my God,until he went awayand died.

-1935



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To My Friend Nancy

Nancy, when I said my path henceforthWould no longer bring me to yourself,It startled me to see your pretty eyes grow moist,As tears had come to mine when first I knewThis little townWas destined as a town of yesteryearAnd you within it as a lovely ghostIn realm of things that were.In the eons yet to comeWhen the Adversary reigns,I'll turn from him and turn to you,Always present in my dreams.-1987-

I am a Spirit and a Soul,And I have dreamed the Dream of Life,And in the dream you dwell secure.-1997-

God knows if I'll remember you forever.But twenty years elapse unto this dateAnd I remember you.Memories and memoriesAnd dreams and dreams,And dreams of youIn all my dreams.I am a Spirit and a SoulAnd I have dreamed this dream of Life,And in this dream you are secure.Finished, finished, done at last,I'll walk quite soon among the Stones of Fire,But of the Dream of Life I dreamed,I'll dream of you forever.-1977



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47

Sheryl From Woolworth Where I Dined

Quickly Sheryl, in thy stately way, lithe and tall upon the streets,

Hasten to the First National and then across the wayTo lunch in that café, next to where I watched you As I dined and marveled, yhat in this self-same world,Where I in maleness languish,

You are.

The dress shop waits, the summer morning wanes,The ordained passage as predicted first in eons pastOf Sheryl in this time and in this town, has come,

And on the morrow wheresoever you may be,Sweet Nancy comes instead, and in her wake,

Like princesses in waiting at the wedding of the queen,Still other beauties follow, but this immortal moment,This one April morning as I see youWith breasts unbound by bra and fluid in their play,

And your light hair lit by the Sun,I in precognition know a distant timeOf counting and accounting comes.

This entity I am, telling it all in torrentsLike the bursting of a dam,How scores of years were passed,How fears and joys and passions came and went,

And one thing I will say to God then,If indeed He is, and is the doctor of the soul,My psychiatric help of last resort,My administrator of catharsis and the One inflictingUnsolicited love and hate on me:There was a morning long ago when I saw Sheryl.



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48

Forsake Me Not

Faithless Muse do not forsake me.

I'm in the City far from home.

Strangers, strangers, everywhere I look.

O Muse, forsake me not. I need you with me

When the nights extend too far,

When the nights are too long.



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49

Across the River Styx

Orpheus, dear Orpheus,

What do you desire from Hell?

Even if your splendid lyre

And beauty of your song so move

The dark Prince of that place

That he lets go your Love,

Behold her not, behold her not

Lest she draw back embracing Death.



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50

Fully Grown, Fully Dead

Their deaths are exceeding slowness in my heart

Where I've so fondly kept them for the longest time.

Only slowly do I face the fact

They aren't alive for me.

This is my fancy, that they live.And if you meet my son or daughter

In some city now

You'll see the semblance, shadow forms,

Of what my son and daughter were.



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51

Uprooted

Uprooted by the violence late endured,

I've sailed far out to sea

With this yellow lamp as buoy,

This battered desk and I

Rise and fall in rolling swell to swell,

And cresting high I westward scan and see

You as ever in the evening

Walking on the shore.

The tides do not repent, nor tides abate

Nor shall an angel in her destined flight

Perceive me lonely in the sea

And take me in her lovely arms

That we may together through the heaven fly

To walk beside you where you walk

In the evening by the shore.



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52

Swan Song

Even now the words occur:

And some are as the sighs of souls forever lost,

Mournful to the Wild,

While on the plains beneath the clouds

When Summer follows Spring,

Words as rushing waters flow.

The Tigris follows.

Euphrates flows.

Monongahela seeks the sea.

Pilgrim, Pilgrim come and drink.

O Poet, bathe in Truth.



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53

Vacant Eyes

Several times I tried to talk to you

And several times you heard the sound--I think.

Something of confusion happened in the air:

The words were warped and twisted if you heard them,

And you received nothing that I spoke.

I can tell by your blank face,

The vacant eyes as you reply,

When you reply,

With something having no connection

To anything I said.



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54

The Bug

Little grandchild when you're grown

You'll have no cause to think of me

But I'll remember all my life

The time your mother brought you here

When you were eight years old.

In days that now have fled away

From this town you saw just once

I would send you cards and toys,

And once a tiny wooden box

Which when you opened it revealed

A black and moving bug.

And in your childish hand you wrote

"Thank you for the little bug."

And in the margin of your note,

"I love you" "I love you" "I love you"

And you drew a happy face.



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55

Winds Amid the Grass

Speaking through the torrent of my tears,

I sought to know what no man knows,

Why Death at random seeks

The very young and very old

Along with those whose competence is full

As was dear Charlotte's when her last hour came.The evening winds amid the grass above her grave

Were all the answers I received

Save that they were winds amid the grass.



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56

Melancholy Dreams

The nights abound in melancholy dreams,

And when I wake they do so cling

It seems the death of Hope impends.

But lest Hope's demise truly come,

Dayspring to her ancient Hour

Ascends

With warmth and light to lavish on

The little Sleepers in Virginia's tree

Who lift their tiny wings and sing.

They sing. They sing.

And I as Player to their song

Rise and walk and work and talk

As if I never lost you.

Within my rest when evenings come,

I miss your gentle self

And therefore when I sleep and dream

My heart regresses to the Perfect Day

In post-war Phoenix when you were.



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57

Joining Uncle George

Remove me also to that gentle hill

Where Uncle George has lain so long.

I'll wait there while this winter wanes

And notice not when the cities burn

And oceans rage across the lands.

For in the summer of my death

Whose rains renew the earth,

And so do cause my poems unwrit

To rise as beauty in the grass above my grave,

I'll nothing know until my soul detects

Great clouds of angels in the sky,

And in their midst the One I sought

Before my death occurred.



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58

There's No Way Back

If the grip of all that happened

Held me not so fast,

I would love to wake in a bright dawn,

So long ago,

To once more, one more fleet hour reside

In Lawrence on New Hampshire Street

Where it intersects with Two Thousand,

And have the light of the summer morning

To define my solitary bedroom there,

And none of the intervening years

Ever to have happened.



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59

Just Listen

It took seventy yearsBefore I had the words to speak to you.

Always the desire was there

Subdued within me, and at times I tried

But you weren't willing.

Now, willing or not, please hear me.

I want to tell you something:

I'm not immortal on the Earth,

But soon must die. Please pause awhile

Amid your occupations.

Relax, I have no hurt for you.

Listen, just listen, I want to tell you something:

I loved you in the former years

And I love you now.



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60

To My Beloved Charlotte

Fifty years have passed, and three years more,

And post-war Phoenix where we lived

Has fashioned from its crucible the desert sand

Marvels greater than Babylon.

Of every person we then knew,

Only I continue in this world

To mark the anniversary each year

Of your too sudden death.

Shall Nostalgia therefore forbid,

As I'm in transit through some morning half-awakeBetween a night bereft of you

And day also cursed,

My hand in love to lightly stroke

The reach of bed where in the former times

You were? Shall God demur if in the lonely hour

My thoughts regress to Phoenix lost

And how your presence graced it?



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61

The Preacher Preached

The preacher preached.

I made no sense

Of anything he said.

My eyes as though not eyes of mine

Witnessed things unreal

As Charlotte, paler than before,

Was lowered toward the ground.

All night long the cold rain fell,

Invading Charlotte's grave.

And in an hour most dark,

Charlotte as a Spirit came

Translucent to our home,

But came not for a view of me

But came to see her child.



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62

Most Favored Nation

O Occidental friend, my friend,

When you buy this china figurine

Glazed and baked by me,

You provide that I shall have my rice

And a small amount of straw

To lie on in the night

And dream of U.S.A.

And in my dream I dream

That somewhere far from here

Your white hand will know how my own hand

Made this angel, dressed so well,

To please your little girl.



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63

And To Phoenix

Phoenix, Phoenix, land of Sol,

Nourished by your acquifer below,

I'll not walk your streets again

Nor with these eyes behold

How your buildings, floor by floor,

Of steel and stone and glass,

Soar so high through summer skies

They risk the wrath of Elohim.

Be what you are, if dressed in gold.

I'll never by first class

Nor ever via coach return

Except I come sans mortal form

Seeking Charlotte's grave.



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64

Farewell to Kansas City

Restrain your glee, K.C.

These tears that please you so

Speak not to coup de grace

But are mere transient dew upon

Vast oceans of my grief

That lap opposing shores.

I was in trauma when I came to you

And suffered by your cause.

And I'll have tears to spare when my

Long night in you has faded

To the past.

In retrospect I'll dream of you,

Of the beauty of your hills.

But dreams are dreams, and real is real.

There is no truth in you.



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65

Death Angel

Quiet as angels are,

Death Angel came here in the night,

And when the morning came I found

Another of my friends is gone.

Oh angel, quiet as you are,

I heard the music of your wingsAbove this house where now I sleep,

And Barbie Webber died

And still I am alive.



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66

It's Final Now

Words and words and words and words

Come forth from whence they come,

And some are clothed in grace so great

That stone regrets its stony heart.

But none say more and none soar more

Than Innocence declares,

Not having books,And never thoughtful in the night,

"I love you, love you,

And you're far away."



VAGRANT WIND

67

Fragment from the Archives

Flamboyant clouds of early morn

Bear in their cloudy arms an orb

Precious more than priceless jewels.

O Wake! O Wake!

City of exile far from home,

I shall walk your lonely streets today.



VAGRANT WIND

68

Near DeathI was awake one summer nightAnd heard a great plane in flight,And peering from my window sawIts star-like colored little lightsAs laser beams across the sky.Lonely tears were in my eyesWhen the great plane flew from sight;No loving thing aboard that planeOr other planes or any train,Or vessels on the open seas,Will ever know that I am me.I turned about and saw my room;It was sterile and quite bare,Just a bed, a desk and chair,No loving spouse was quartered there,No little children playing there,Just a bed, a desk and chair,Otherwise the room was bare.The Earth has mass and I am small.Nothing could prevent my fall.Soma, soma on the floor,I am Spirit as before,Translucent feet on Golden Sand.Now I'm in that Other Land,My father's fathers tarry hereAnd I heard Dave's mother say,Please return and don't delay,Soma waits you on the floor.Ask dear Dave to meditate and pray.Saint Francis lives and God is near,Ask dear Dave to meditate and play.



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69

THE CAT

The cat is fat and sleek,

Living comfortably

In the Hawaiian islands.

Now he thinks he's ready

To challenge the system

That chewed him up very

Badly in former times.

Why would Solzhenitsyn

Desire to revisit

The dirty old gulag,

Having once escaped it?

Maybe he was walking

A solitary walk,

Far from Siberia,

And passed a church and heard,

"God is calling you home."

What home? Oh, you dumb cat,

You've never been where God is!

Maybe the Devil



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70

Has stolen God's clothes

From some eternal

Celestial washing

Machine, and is now

Pretending to whisper

In the Preacher's ear,

As God from a home

That never was.

But - you can go back

To New Yee-ork City

For some more money,

Bring the money back

To a real home

In the islands.

Then you can get married

To a male or female cat

And if God ever wants you

He can come and get you,

Calling on you at your home!

Oh, my! The cat already sports

A few gray hairs!



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71

1946 Morning in Phoenix

Silent Spring, O Silent Spring,

Retain thy Advent in the wings.

The little Sleepers in the trees

Lift their tiny wings and sing.

The birds of summer wake and sing.

Shall I not rise, shall I not rise

And walk about the city now

As if my Love had perished not?

On Sunday last I did so walk

And heard her call, heard Charlotte call.

I must leave Phoenix now.I must leave Phoenix now.



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72

David

We were the heroes

of the mornings and the afternoons.

Then when evenings came we weren't,

And now the night is come.

David, David, Charlotte's son,

Why did I love you so?

The night is here, the night is here,

And if you come where I am lain,

I will never know it.



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73

Inevitably We Shall Say Goodbye

Four times now you’ve said “I love you” to me,

And “I came here because I love you.”

How awkward between a son and father

When these words need to be said.

You know I love you too,

But I dread what is upon us once more:

Inevitably we shall say goodbye.

Why? Why? Because!

But I will love you as long as I live – and afterward.

If Charlotte is, she is with us now.

One day soon I’ll lie down on my small bed,

And close my eyes, and let them not open again.

Engraved forever then on their dark retina

Will be the image of yourself,

The perfect child of Charlotte,

Now grown to be a perfect man.

Thank you for being my friend.

(I was on my way home, on a cold winter bus, and I looked out and saw Davidrunning beside it and waving to me.)



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74

Note to My Therapist

Dreaming, sometimes I think those who denied me my existence willexpress a minimum regret for their actions. They will not. Not one of them, notever. The most they do is to cease their torment and thus credit themselves; theyare fine people, they are magnanimous, they feel so good about themselves, forthey now permit at last that I may live.

If feel close to Dr. Targownik, and with him have rapport, he who carries

on his arm a tattooed number so he may, wherever now he lives, rememberBuchenwald. God knows what mark is on his soul. Before his eyes those of hisfaith were to the all-consuming flames consigned, as they were “different,” andthe whole German nation took no note, nor smelled the stench, nor heard theanguished cries.

The doctor held his arm before me, so I might see the number. Theheroine of the afternoons and that bright morning suddenly knew no fear. Now tosee that mark and know its meaning, I grew faint as only in the nights before,wherein I wept and none could see. And then a psychic shudder swept throughthe Conscious and Unconscious – a tremor and dry sobbing because I Am. I felt

an Imminence of Death, and worse, for I am different also. And I believe I was inperil, and am so now, from those who want a world without this entity I am.



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75

The Millerites

Christ's return is still imminent.

It seems that a retired farmer, who owned a large house and several acres ofstout trees near town, had made some learned calculations as to the imminentreturn of Chirst. This farmer, named Miller, had founded a sect called the

Millerites. And they believed him when he set the exact date of the momentousevent, on which date they assembled in his fields and climbed his trees attired insheets, as instructed, to spend their last night on earth.

They were like white poppy blossoms. In which tree was Mr. Miller himselfperched? Well. some who were in the South Field said, "He's in the North Field."But inhabitants of the North Field were regaled by rumors of his honoredpresence in the tallest tree of the South Field.

The night was long. It was hard to stay awake. One man lost his grip and waskilled when he fell, forever losing his chance to enter Paradise. Another fellow

merely broke his leg when e fell, and he stayed on the ground hollering all night.His holy peers were unwilling to select someone to climb down and help himbecause, if a rescue were in progress, and Christ arrived in the midst of it, thosealoft in trees would be harvested and taken up, but then three instead of twowould be left behind in worldly hell: the man who fell to his death, the man whowas hollering and the man who got down to help him.

Well, morning came. And Mr. Miller, who had spent the night in his bed, camedown and asked his wife, "What's for breakfast?"

THE END



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76

An Interesting Camel Story

Have you ever been up to your ears in sand?

After reading an interesting camel story today, I wondered whether the authorhad ever known a real camel. He said camels are loaded on their knees. When aparticular camel was being loaded, he said it moaned and groaned and bellowedwith every pound added, as camels usually do - so far so good. Finally, he said,

the leader of the caravan, whose camel it was, became sympathetic, but he hadone more box to load. The leader asked, "Mr. Camel, Mr. Camel, can I put onemore box on you?" Mr. Camel replied, "Go ahead, sir! I'm not going to stand upanyway!"

Well, I don't know a whole lot about camels, but I don't believe that story. I doknow that camels served in the Army in Texas and Arizona just before the CivilWar. Then the railroads came, and that was that.

When I was in the First Cavalry Division in Texas, I acquired a book about anEnglish officer named Lawrence who induced a group of Arabs to cross a

supposedly un-crossable desert and attack and take a Turkish city whose fixedcannons were turned to the sea. They crossed on camels - I think it took twoweeks.

Now the Turks knew it couldn't be done. The Arabs knew it couldn't be done. butColonel Lawrence caused it to be done. Years later, his book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom , was filmed as 'Lawrence of Arabia, starring Omar Shariff and PeterO' Toole. The Colonel had much to say in his book about body odors and sweat,lack of water and camels.

Many times when riding horseback in the Texas boondocks, I wondered if I could

duplicate that feat. One time we were on a training exercise near Donna Annaand an awful sandstorm came up - visibility was zero. Each horse took its rider -wherever! We couldn't see each other at all.

Finally the storm ended, and I was not able to see even one person around me,but was entirely alone. I did, however, see a hat , so I went to pick it up and wasshocked to find a man under it, buried up to his eyebrows. He was alive. In aboutan hour, I was able to dig him up. A lucky break - he knew the way back to camp,



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77

so I offered him a ride with me so he and I could find our buddies. And then, asecond shock! He said, "No, thanks, I'll ride my own horse. Let's dig him up too!"

Sure enough, the man I found had been buried in the sand while still mounted -with his horse under him. Did you ever try to dig up a horse who was in sand up

to his ears?

It was not easy. Before we were done, I wished I had never seen either of them.Or the hat, either.

THE END



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78

Beyond Devil’s Reach

What is this song my heart now hears

Blessed music to my ears?

Last week I thought this party given me

Was just to say good-bye.

“Good-bye, Dear Ruth, Good-bye.”

Yet here I am today

Beyond Devil’s reach.

The dance of death is done,

The dance of life begun.



VAGRANT WIND

79

Death Angel

Though now romanced by Angel Death,

I still retain the will

To sit upright and write

And, to the cardboard boxes in this room,

Consign the sordid tale.

Then when my kin arrive they’ll know

I was here.

I stood far off from all of you,

As you so ardently desired.

And now to Angel Death I say,

“Welcome, Welcome Angel Death.

Why did you delay?”



VAGRANT WIND SHEKHINA H

Perhaps bec ause the ho ur was la te

The night b ereft o f a ll distrac tions

And only she was in itThere see me d a transluc ent

Fem inine, wa rm flame

An aura in her and ab out her

Ad dressing me a s to my soul

In an invad ing a nd enc om passing

Mod ula ted a nd a ffec tiona te voic e

She see me d , a t tha t flee t instanc e

Of our lives, extraord inarily beautifulMore so tha n any woma n I had eve r seen

In a fea rful insta nt, an insta nt o f awe

I perc eived I was in His p resenc e

Without doub t c loser in tha t o ffic e

Than until the fina l day I would ever be

Astonished , I felt a trem or in our hand s

Looked within her limp id eyes

And notic ed she had been c rying

R.B.C. WaltersKansas City 2007

Vagrant Wind Poems by Bruce Campbell Walters

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