Eric Walker: Selected Poems


Edited by Raymond Foye and Scott Walker


         


Eric Walker Sketchbook, 1993



Forever

       

Seeing you that way,

spending time in the cold awakening day,

slip from the tycoon of love, 

for God is up above, not below

the ice of rivers freezing cold,

I'll see you when I get there too old

and young like a minstrel who sings

his song for all that bleed,

heaven help me to see

that they nailed him to a tree,

bloody white the shroud that tore,

final wisdom of that broken door,

hand-me downs of faith and love, 'up down'

you'll know the sea from the shore,

handsome shows that you adore,

but bribed upon like a shallow lake,

you've mistaken the Shepherd for the snake,

listen up, there's somebody who cares,

that counts the blood on all your hairs,

so sleep easy now, for soon you'll be out of sight,

dining with the Sun at midnight,

forever blue are your eyes,

that sing in tune and make me wise,

come gather your storms at my gate,

I can't wait to see the real you,

scorned like an army of clowns,

and mistaken liberty for so many false crowns,

hurry love born of the wind,

let me see you unwind again,

happiness is a tragic fate,

sorrow is coming too late,

for when that trumpet sounds

you'll have your ears to the ground,

spoken of Jealousies that have 

no control over you,

sometimes you turn just so true,

but me I'm not happy to see

what has become of you,

it's all a mystery to me

why you are so blue, then there is forever

to blind your appetite, and narrow streets

of gold to bind you tight,

never leave me, that's a promise to see,

but as the leaves turn trust the sea,

so do the birds fly by in waves,

from the closed heart that you find

staging one last romance in the dark,

for eternity is just some monarch  

waiting for his day to sit forever 

on a throne, but believing that he 

is never alone.





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