No Help for That | Jackie Clark

Good Book

If their path was one of desire
Where is their desire in this land of miles upon miles
Of waste? – of bitter black cold loneliness
Gray packs of them streak through the silent night
One can hear them, one cannot spot one of them,
Day and night, night and day, leaps and bounds on
Endlessly toward where is one’s desire, why is one’s desire?
Where there is no desire or end to desire or lure
Of dread, depth, or breadth of miles, Of one lone wolf howl
In this land of black cold on white loneliness
And days one builds one’s fire in that wonderful loneliness
Days of waiting, watching, of glued glassified city wondering
Of wandering by one’s thoughts, how I loved loneliness, or moreover

–Alfred Starr Hamilton