Say prickly pears had roots which found out water,
had branches bursting out in sulphur flame.
Wanderers traipsing from a cracked sierra
munched subtle fruits but gave them no good name.
Benison may taste queer yet men reserve
too gross a censure. Let curt blessing serve.
Wickedly desert airs puffed dusts obscuring
conventional moralities as to conspire
or blew torn memoranda from a future
one was obliged to. Meanwhile the sage took fire.
Subways, and acts of Congress, be defended!
Was it for this the Beast sometime abandoned?
Compulsive slobberings at the lotos,
then wasteland vagrants connoisseurs of bone –
you, buttonholed assiduous at the cactus,
you I address: “You have been much alone?”
Votary of sedition, your taste too fine
commits you hence. Lambent the blossoms shine.
A fossil sonnet creviced in our Lost Canyon
with a phial of urgent prayer find dividend
now as for never mere. The Father handing
you down, courteous, assures you a good end.
Admitted indiscretion sleeps in, later
Salve and Vale, each another, Pater.
(Kendrick Smithyman)
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Based on Topics: Name Poems, Fire Poems, Water Poems, Fathers Poems, Future Poems, Government Poems, Congress PoemsBased on Keywords: sierra, phial, conventional, wasteland, assiduous, dusts, obscuring, wickedly, sedition, vagrants, lotos