Eric Walker: Selected Poems


Edited by Raymond Foye and Scott Walker


         


Eric Walker Sketchbook, 1993



Center

       

Voiceless hold upon

the green fig, riled passion

disturbs the silent twig;

worn as water the summit jet

returns to the viable wet

jungle of cold vetch,

struggling to keep warm

upon the Summer's storm,

ageless and never tired,

revolving and always striving 

to know the open mire

of sleepless gnomes upon

the stronghold of wire

planted deep in the magnet's face,

stuck forever upon the sad race

of mild giants caught in place,

a sea-bell rings twice,

the roads are spinning ice,

I touch the dark shadow within,

there is time to know and time to win,

that which is inside will never be revealed,

that which is warm will never be sealed,

see the potter at his wheel,

how glib his season is within his steel

fortress there are times he wishes nothing else

but to curl the soft air around his fingers

and melt it like twine till its essence lingers.





Reprinted by kind permission of the Regents of the University of California,
Bancroft Library, Berkeley. Gift of Diane Walker Murray