OF GHOST & OLD MEN
For Ralph Colrane Windsor Johnston
By Gary Johnston
Cut from the promise
Of my father’s rock
A child’s hobbyhorse prayer
I am the one committed to a house
Of laughter and gypsy women
Who read the changing of the stars.
To the madhouse confession
I chase no shadows in dark rooms
Embroidered images dressed
On the facing wall.
I will from the days
That run to the sealed book
Pull sanity from rubble
Drag my tragicomedy
Of the passion play
To a tender mercy
Of no new Jerusalems,
El mina castles forged
From the stone of my father’s life.
I am his fourth child
Given to a legacy of Harlem swing town
Pittsburgh steel, the Alleghenies
In his blood heated to
A diamond stickpin,
Stomp of Renaissance & Savoy
Making of him “Colrane on the loose”
A finisher of wood & ships
Ships & men
& like the “old dog”
from which he was cut
I too believe in scripture,
The coming of old men
& ghost.
For Ralph Colrane Windsor Johnston
By Gary Johnston
Cut from the promise
Of my father’s rock
A child’s hobbyhorse prayer
I am the one committed to a house
Of laughter and gypsy women
Who read the changing of the stars.
To the madhouse confession
I chase no shadows in dark rooms
Embroidered images dressed
On the facing wall.
I will from the days
That run to the sealed book
Pull sanity from rubble
Drag my tragicomedy
Of the passion play
To a tender mercy
Of no new Jerusalems,
El mina castles forged
From the stone of my father’s life.
I am his fourth child
Given to a legacy of Harlem swing town
Pittsburgh steel, the Alleghenies
In his blood heated to
A diamond stickpin,
Stomp of Renaissance & Savoy
Making of him “Colrane on the loose”
A finisher of wood & ships
Ships & men
& like the “old dog”
from which he was cut
I too believe in scripture,
The coming of old men
& ghost.
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