Sustained by poetry, fed anew
by its fires to return from madness,
the void does not beckon as it used to.
Littered with syllables, the road does not loom
as a chasm. The hand of strangers on other
doors does not hurt, the breath of gods
does not desert, but looms large
as a dream, a prairie within our dream,
to which we return, when we need to.
Oh blessed plain, oh pointed chasm.
From Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners, edited by Joshua Beckman, CAConrad, and Robert Dewhurst © 2015 John Wieners Literary Trust, Raymond Foye, Administrator. Reprinted with the permission of The John Wieners Literary Trust.