Wild Orphan Analysis

     Blandly mother
takes him strolling
     by railroad and by river
--he's the son of the absconded
     hot rod angel--
and he imagines cars
     and rides them in his dreams,

so lonely growing up among
     the imaginary automobiles
and dead souls of Tarrytown

     to create
out of his own imagination
     the beauty of his wild
forebears--a mythology
     he cannot inherit.

Will he later hallucinate
     his gods? Waking
among mysteries with
     an insane gleam
of recollection?

     The recognition--
something so rare
     in his soul,
met only in dreams
     --nostalgias
of another life.

A question of the soul.
     And the injured
losing their injury
     in their innocence
--a cock, a cross,
     an excellence of love.

And the father grieves
     in flophouse
complexities of memory
     a thousand miles
away, unknowing
     of the unexpected
youthful stranger
     bumming toward his door.

                         New York, April 13, 1952

.: :.

How do we know that the mother is mentally handicapped? There is no evidence of that at all. Blandly only means without excitement or enthusiasm.

| Posted on 2009-03-15 | by a guest

.: Wild Orphan :.

I liked the way the poet wrote that poem. it really made me feel like i was a part of his actual life and i was there too in the background walking with him along the railroad with his mentally handicapped mother. this is a powerful and great poem!

| Posted on 2008-03-20 | by a guest