Lines Composed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue


In the trees beyond the White House lawn
a sound dawns in the branches,
a loud sound in the leaves,
Florida grieves what it has lost.

What morning tossed to middle day
I listen to, I hear my name.
The gore of corporate compromise
strands me, mocks me.

Gore, the gore of children,
and, yes, the gore that's left
of dreams, as courts dare say
my blood, though shed, won't save.

Gore, a nation's gore,
the symbol that decomposes.
I walk the halls of power
like they are mine.

To the world I say
I know what worlds are,
I know what is bigger
than sex, than Texas.

I walk along the White House lawn,
never alone but for
the echoing halls of thought--
I dream I dream the dream

of every blade of grass and bug
on every blade of grass,
and those of bed mites and of
head lice, dreaming in the corona of your dreams,

then I wake from walking sleep,
turn to the endless lens
and bravely face the graceless
reflection in your giant eye.


1/2001