for P. Goodman, Posthumously


I picked him up for a buck;
sad he should end up
on such a dusty shelf,
bagged him and brought him home.

Lit up a bowl,
smoked it twice to be sure it was spent,
and eagerly began my journey
through his awesome halls of verse.

Through the labrynith,
sometimes ever quite so slowly,
with my footsteps
echoing as if in his tomb,
sometimes politely jogging through
like a mellow sunday afternoon,
other times racing through
like a sudden monday morning.

Down long, musty, gothic halls,
past old but still solid walls
modernly decorated in an ancient style:
with glittering mosiacs
made of brightly colored pieces
called ideas,
with sculptured marble concepts
standing in corners,
with intricately stunning tapestries
hand-woven from the baroque
fabric of his insights,
and his images hanging on the tall walls
like classic paintings.

Through wide and narrow halls,
with spout, like shing fountains,
sprouting from the walls
squirting out his feeling,
some warm and sweet,
others cold and bitter;
all you have to do is press the silver button.

As sudden as a hiccup -
the end of the maze,
the proverbial end of the rainbow,
standing before the glowing pot of gold
i stood before
his monolithic set
of huge, oak double doors.

And then, terrified,
I opened them to peek inside
his immense, secret, peacock mind.

© Mark E. Dougherty