3 Al Purdy's

Stand in the swaying boxcar doorway
moving east away from the sunset and
after a while the eyes digest a country and
the belly perceives a mapmaker's vision
in dust and dirt on the face and hands here
its smell drawn deep through the nostrils down
to the lungs and spurts through the bloodstream
campaigns in the lower intestine and
chants love songs to the kidneys
After a while there is no arrival and
no departure possible any more
you are where you were always going
and the shape of home is under your fingernails.

I'm a product of some parents of the sort that shouldn't breed
didn't get much schooling past learning how to read
got the poetry bug in some forgotten institution
when first I did embark on my career of destitution
the beauty of language set a hook in my soul
me like a breadcrust soaking soup from a bowl
You can call this a rant but I declare I declaim
Al Purdy's poems are the name of the game
the winds of fate blow where they will
I'll give you 3 Al Purdy's for a twenty dollar bill

Porkers in the counting house counting out the bacon
matter's getting darker in the universe they're making
they love the little guy until they get a better offer
with the dollar getting smaller they can fit more in their coffers
and the doings on the corner neither sung nor seen
they're circling the shopping carts at Sherbourne and Queen
I resemble that assembly but I'm not the same
Al Purdy's poems are the name of my game
the winds of fate blow where they will
I'll give you 3 Al Purdy's for a twenty dollar bill

You can spit on the prophet but respect the word
I've got some lines I want to spin you that you ought to have heard
the winds of fate blow where they will
I'll give you 3 Al Purdy's for a twenty dollar bill

the winds of fate blow where they will
I'll give you 3 Al Purdy's for a twenty dollar bill

And after the essence of everything
had exchanged itself for words and became
another being and could even be summoned
from the far distance we chanted a spell of names
and we said "mountain be our friend"
and we said "River guard us from enemies"
And we said what it seemed the gods themselves
might say if we had dreamed them and they
had dreamed us from their high places
and they spoke to us in the forest
from the river and the mountain
and the mouths of the ochre-painted dead
had speech again and the waters
spoke and the speech had words
and our children remembered