Horseman, 5:14

I am exhumed on the express,

Out of the aftermath of five,

And though I starve on consciousness,

Dead reckoning keeps me alive.

Transient, I ride like sun on chrome.

Velocity, my brightest skill,

Sustains me like an ordered home;

Meaning is individual.

As the enigma deepens, I,

Who hunt on plains of sensory error,

Mete out the judgment of my eye

And multiply in finite terror.

My love is waiting near her bed,

Great shadows fall upon the West;

Train, freighted with tomorrow's dead,

Take me to fury, not to rest.

Moore Moran

© 1960; originally printed in The Paris
Review.  Reprinted by permission of the
author.