Four* Old Poems and Music

3. I See The Want To In Your Eyes - 1974

[Lexington, Kentucky]

The Greyhound bus is
America on wheels
and all roads are its domain.
Travelling across bluegrass Kentucky
it showed me tobacco fields,
hillside shacks, thoroughbred farms,
the usual billboards
and night fires of the Ku Klux Klan.

Earlier a woman had asked
why, when there were other places,
I would sit next to a black man.
Looking back it's hard to picture exactly
the flames or procession,
whether the window at my side
burned orange, or if I could have
dreamed the wild faces.

I was still learning the true facts of life
as the music changed too,
listening to Conway who moved from
rock 'n' roll to the American folklore
of country blues, singing of how to
make love to his woman tonight,
not love's absence in a state still
shaped by the poles of black and white.

[* though it may be three as I can't find a fourth I want to post here]