An equatorial ice-cube blithered between pamphlets
inspiring a lamp
or lurched into tunnels exploring subtractions of light.
She’d a minute before….but the cardboard ukuleles
they played
hanging
on strings, so the surprise of her canticle soars.
Nobody else! The wine cellar was it murder?
The covert disappearances. Hot dogs
bean-ball: loam run slumber your
splendid uranium punch slough-pit
mausoleum geranium.
Relative towards leave the sun spot
stuffing farm rigs…..2 rockingchairs
taken from you
slowly but they get tangled.
Chewing the rubber chop
carburetor churning apartments
disappoint gaze!
The teenaged knoll warmed:: swarmed
into brass glass: flexing swig to prevent
mountain sickness. Arriving at the Tejon
climb: escape claws pussycat dues posing
with fur: foam removed thrust her triple
borders all sides welts beige swell elastic tug
planned getaway: garment rides!
His wife’s taut progressive
tones
new angel….she faces you like film.
The fashion slant we’re never over!
Young scoff
cliques gather for their dishes volcano
lavender belt….fan snake
exposing this is not to slip it in.
Her cosmetology
hem torn
empty most automated.
Nightclub Irish/Italian
but then the suburbs robbed them.
To this they go away quail bop where
fog means instant night
under enthusiastic hoods near insomnia
Tentative hotel deposit summing-up she would
company royalty….crushed clay earth ant!
A rehabilitated thief jump lifts car
to steal down cop-tinted corridors.
Under this model it causes you medical equipment
but a forgiveness she’d give
weakening the cultural kickoff or should we say: kill-off?
Smudge-pot vectors inspection
starving 3-piece donation. Smog alert gymnasium!
The dirty fumes member shows numb disenchanted
vinyl funny morning water
the sewer above their catch geometry
notebook obfuscated….cry!
They’re snapping
excluding kid gloves
afternoon neck meditation arid air
this day……an asphalt knife.
She says it’s trapped
but crawling with clovers
sharps impossible
true trash a left.
Person franchise drive People gapped her
purse: an avalanche would open them.
I sneeze at efficient public electric
light war games: blood earlier: bonus all too
disappearing.
Your garden less
wrench
look deciding a stampede
welfare binge
4 foreigners.
Departure time….not mine anyway!
Glendale, California {1989}
From: Crosswalk Casserole
Summary
“GREYHOUND” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, social justice. Its imagery is anchored in California, Glendale, California. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
A personal, first-person speaker combines recollection with direct emotional address.
Style and form
The poem is line-driven, first-person. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include place and geography, love and relationships, social justice, nature. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “GREYHOUND” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Crosswalk Casserole (Lawn Gnome Publishing, First Edition, 2013)
Rights: © 2013 Lawn Gnome Publishing. All rights reserved.