32 I take my caffeine where I can get it

32

I take my caffeine where I can get it;

I take my caffeine where I can get it;

I take pleasure in knowing that my life

Is in movement the way it is, not the way

It could be; it is full sufficient. I,

Feel, a golden aura of eased rapture;

To know it, is exquisite. I’ll ride the

Mule-train, mule-train; letters far-out to the

People who go West, curlicues brushing

Their ears, their necks. I’ve got odds on them's:

All money they’ll get them all. But I am

A lonely man, “they call the wind Maria.”

I’d be Cato, and rip out my guts,

Than spin this failed web and tug me against me.

All that Dante could do but with crudity

Point out an old gray man, a horror of

Misconception and frivolity, to

Be yarded now with a pensive malice.

I’ll take my caffeine where it sits on yet

Cool granite up the gorges and waterfalls

In the Sierras, with rattlesnake and eggs

For breakfast, the cold sun on the ridges

Breaking my boots. Odds are, by nightfall.

- Anatol Cordua (c) 2017