March 2017
Dick Allen
rallen285@earthlink.net
rallen285@earthlink.net
I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl during my freshman college year. What else could a young poet do afterwards but search America as they had done? So in the summer of 1958, I hitchhiked, train rode, bus rode, and walked about our nation. Ever since, I’ve doubted any truth about America that doesn’t stumble on rural dirt roads and stand under inner-city
streetlights . . . in Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Boise, Little Rock, and Wheeling, West Virginia. . . .
I carried an emergency piece of American cheese, wrapped in cellophane, that survived until the morning I returned to my hometown village of Round Lake, NY. There, I unwrapped the cheese in my parents’ deserted kitchen—they’d gone to a camp in the Adirondack Mountains, not expecting my return. The cheese was still quite good.
streetlights . . . in Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Boise, Little Rock, and Wheeling, West Virginia. . . .
I carried an emergency piece of American cheese, wrapped in cellophane, that survived until the morning I returned to my hometown village of Round Lake, NY. There, I unwrapped the cheese in my parents’ deserted kitchen—they’d gone to a camp in the Adirondack Mountains, not expecting my return. The cheese was still quite good.
I Was Eighteen
Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska—
when I was eighteen I hitch-hiked across them,
trying to find out the truth about America.
I carried a sleeping bag, knapsack, film and a camera,
pen and a notebook. I hitch-hiked in sunlight and storm
across Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,
Wyoming, Texas, New Mexico, Utah,
and both Dakotas. I was eighteen. My dream
was to find out the truth about America
whatever that was. Was she Utopia,
“the last best hope of mankind”? Was she the same
across Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska
as she was in New England? I longed for great drama,
some over-the-blacktop Hank Williams to come
and I would find out the truth about America.
But I was eighteen, naïve as clam chowder. Montana
was simply huge sky. Idaho, tubers. Nevada, a game.
And in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,
they just smiled when I asked them the truth about America.
from This Shadowy Place: Poems (St. Augustine Press, 2014)
Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska—
when I was eighteen I hitch-hiked across them,
trying to find out the truth about America.
I carried a sleeping bag, knapsack, film and a camera,
pen and a notebook. I hitch-hiked in sunlight and storm
across Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,
Wyoming, Texas, New Mexico, Utah,
and both Dakotas. I was eighteen. My dream
was to find out the truth about America
whatever that was. Was she Utopia,
“the last best hope of mankind”? Was she the same
across Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska
as she was in New England? I longed for great drama,
some over-the-blacktop Hank Williams to come
and I would find out the truth about America.
But I was eighteen, naïve as clam chowder. Montana
was simply huge sky. Idaho, tubers. Nevada, a game.
And in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,
they just smiled when I asked them the truth about America.
from This Shadowy Place: Poems (St. Augustine Press, 2014)
©2017 Dick Allen
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