Thomas R. Turner (May 23, 1942–November 13, 2014) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
This posting is the fourth of several I will be sharing from a long poem written by Tom
sometime around 1980 after his wife left him. Today is the fifth anniversary of his death.
24 to Harwood and Cropsy: No Road Back Home
(Taken from a Brooklyn Bus Route and the Title of a Blues Album.)
Closely watched trains came and went without me without us
I somehow missed you
Eyes have a way.
After love with my caliban sweat and noises
A vacant resentment would knife
From glares askance
First seen in the pain of Vanessa-labor.
And this is what happens when you love someone?
Progeny and sunburn haired sensualness
Prefaced Rare-Earth and a student nurse.
The ideology of lesbos intimacy had
Clandestinely raised its latent head.
But it doesn't matter anymore.
(You were the poet in my heart)
91st street was the end
Wasn't it?
Curious how our windows are always steamed-up
On Autumnal days.
(Was ANYTHING central?)
The "is-this-all-there-is" syndrome sums up the
Period: Existentialist discontent
With a walk-up duplex decor.
A matter-of-fact sexuality
Presaged a psychic-incarnation I couldn't see.
Lisa brought home a metamorphosis I didn't
Realize.
They cut your "tubes" after she came and that was that.
Funny how I thought even then that is was
All a matter of hormonal imbalance. Shit!
And what about you?
Paradoxes betray the limits of logic
Not of the reality we shared.
Your "passion" was stillborn though so damn necessary.
A dissolution of absence into substance sucked
Screaming through a Rimbaud-Day-On-Fire.
I could't laugh enough for the
Frivolity she needed but detested.
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