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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..62ab481 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60114 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60114) diff --git a/old/60114-0.txt b/old/60114-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e309f19..0000000 --- a/old/60114-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2097 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sardonic Arm, by Maxwell Bodenheim - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Sardonic Arm - -Author: Maxwell Bodenheim - -Release Date: August 17, 2019 [EBook #60114] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SARDONIC ARM *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - - [Illustration: The - - SARDONIC ARM - - _Bodenheim._-- - - 1923 COVICI-McGEE CHICAGO] - - Copyright 1923 - Covici-McGee - Chicago - - - { This is a limited edition of 575 copies of which } - { 550 copies are for sale and this copy is } - - No. 559. - - - DEDICATED TO MINNA AND FEYDA - - - --They will meet under - different circumstances - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CONCERNING AMERICA 1 - -CRY, NAKED AND PERSONAL 3 - -FANTASY 6 - -HATRED OF METAPHOR AND SIMILE 9 - -TIME, INFINITY AND ETERNITY DESCEND UPON A BLACK DERBY HAT 11 - -I WALK UPON A STREET 13 - -THE INCURABLE MYSTIC ANSWERS WESTERN AMBITIONS 15 - -PLATONIC NARRATIVE 17 - -PORTRAITS 19 - -NEGRO CRIMINAL 26 - -SHORT STORY IN SONNET FORM 27 - -FEMININE TALK 28 - -THE SWORD CONVERSES WITH A PHILOSOPHER 31 - -CAPTAIN SIMMONS 34 - -MORE ABOUT CAPTAIN SIMMONS 36 - -CAPTAIN SIMMONS’ WIFE 37 - -NORTH CLARK STREET, CHICAGO 38 - -LANDSCAPE 41 - -COUNTRY GIRL 42 - -NONDESCRIPT TYPIST 43 - -CONCERNING EMOTIONS 44 - -METAPHYSICAL ELIZABETH 45 - -DESCRIPTION AND EXHORTATION 46 - -INEVITABLE 47 - -THE NEGROES WHO TURNED WHITE 48 - -EXPRESSIONS ON A CHILD’S FACE 50 - -PSYCHIC CLOWNS 51 - -DEAR MINNA 53 - -VILLAGE CLERK 55 - -REALISM 56 - -AMERICAN VAUDEVILLE SHOW 58 - - - - -Reluctant Foreword - - -_If I yield to the remorseful redundancy of a foreword, with its -bedraggled battalions of fiercely insinuating words, it is from no mere -desire to invite the ridicule of impatient time, or to rail against that -host of vacant insincerities which betrays the animations of life. It -may be that I do not look upon words as intimidating a fixed content, or -beckoning to an inevitable style. It may be that I regard words as -flexible lures seducing the essential emptiness of life, with little, -false promises--promises of emotional and mental gain and reward; haloes -and bludgeons with which a void may attain the mirage of toiling or -dancing importance. And perhaps, in the desperate hope of achieving a -proper festival of sound, I have summoned words to a reiteration of -defeated antics, without in any way attempting to gain those exhausted -futilities known as convictions and explanations. And if, through this -foreword, I can revel in a pensive obscurity--a veil that must be -carefully removed with the reading of poems that follow--I shall feel -that I have furnished the exercise of amusement to certain sterile and -over-confident rituals of emotion and mind._ - -_The poetic situation in America is, indeed, a blustering and verbose -invitation to boredom and a slight, reviling headache. When not engaged -in scrubbing the window pane ten times over, lest it prove opaque to an -astigmatic public, American poets are discovering, with great glee, the -perspiring habits and routines of sex, or naively deifying the local -mannerisms of a blithely juvenile country--a lurching, colloquial, -fist-swinging melee of milkmen depositing bottles on doorsteps and -acquiring dignity in the process; chorus-girls and farmhands telling -their troubles in a stilted slang; factory-owners falling in love with -their female employees, to the tune of delicate and novel symbolism -concerning “a longing to enter the house of her being”; ravings over the -strength and poignancy of corn-fields and country-roads--“O, the corn, -how it aches!” and “What is better than the patient and sturdy road?”--; -much roaring about the importance and hard beauty of mills and -factories--crudely smoky boxes of avarice faced by little, kneeling -poets.... Ah, the list, when extended, defies amusement. You must leave -the theater unless you desire the thankless experience of vomiting._ - -_The commercial cacophony of American lusts and greeds has borrowed a -clarinet, a flute, and a saxophone from the admiration of American -poets and is one-stepping with thousands of words, after the office and -factory have closed for the day, “Swee-et Mama, well your papa’s done -gone mad!”--the jerky, leering pandemonium of actual jazz on a polished -floor interests me far more than its more proper and adulterated -echoes--the glorious American poets of our time._ - -_There are, again, American poets who have turned their eyes to Europe, -yes, the fact is apparent--they have turned their eyes to Europe, and -they can, on occasion, become cynical animals, discovering seven -thousand different ways of describing the contortions that lead to -sexual intercourse, and displaying breasts and limbs with an infinite -amount of abandoned bravado. Again, they have heard of the European -Dadaists, yes, undoubtedly they have heard of the European Dadaists, and -they have now reduced the pronoun “I” to “i,” commenced their lines with -small letters, and exhibited a brave and startling hatred for commas and -separate words. In Europe, this literary revolution holds a distorted -incisiveness and many an original thought, heaved up from the -catastrophe of words. In America, certain poets, with great gusto, have -torn three buttons from their coats and are standing on their heads. -Yawning, we turn the page to the greyly psychological school of -poets--William James and Havelock Ellis, viewed with ecstasy behind a -magnifying glass, while someone provides a blurred replica of Bach’s -music._ - -_That tantalizing obscurity of words, luring the nimbleness of mental -regard--subtlety--and those deliberate acrobatics that form an original -style--both are waiting for the melodrama, comedy and lecture to -subside. Alas, what a long waiting is before them--pity these two -aristocrats and admire their isolated tenacity. Drop the trivial gift of -a tear, also, upon a wilted, elaborate figure thrown into cell number -thirty-two and trying to remember that his name was once Intellect. Then -deposit the lengthened confession of a sigh upon another drooping form -known as Delicate Fantasy--an elusive Liar who ravishes colors without -mentioning their names (not the endless blue, green, white, yellow, red, -lavender, mauve, pink, brown, cerise, golden, orange, and purple of -American Imagists). They have kicked him into the cellar, damn them. -Recognize the importance of his bruises. And also, spy, in the loosely -naive tumult, an agile, self-possessed pilgrim known as Irony. They have -kicked him in the stomach, these symbols of earth triumphant.... And -now, you must not look upon these words as a stormy unfolding of -conviction and explanation. The American spectacle has aroused a mood; -words conceal the essential helplessness; and the lurking emptiness -behind life separates into little, curious divisions of sound. The -undulations have ended._ - - - - - The - SARDONIC ARM - - - - - CONCERNING AMERICA - - - Agitated child, - Listening to the words of clown, - Charlatan, blackguard, clergyman, - And vainly trying to follow their commands - Simultaneously, with legs and arms - Swinging like demented Jehovahs, - The plastic shapelessness of mud - Waits to receive your castigated fevers. - And all the children whose inarticulate - Hearts smashed together make your body-- - The burly, waggish rogue - Paid to dance in your cabarets; - The shoulder-shaking girl - Who mistakes one shiver for immortality; - The roughly earnest gunman - Whose blundering insurrection - Clutches a cool device; - The man whose eyes are coins - Encased in viscous white; - The fox-like politician - Leaping on small prizes in the dark; - The farmer, lending his different costume - To the ox-like patience of earth; - The manual laborers - With minds as minute and obscure as bricks, - And softly prominent hearts; - The factory-girls who try to scold - The murmur of their souls - With one hundred slang phrases-- - All of them will lose - Their imaginary differences - In the lenient refuge of mud. - But their souls, ridiculously - Ignorant of national boundary-lines, - And amused at the physical promise - Or ruin that men extract - Tortuously from life-- - Their souls will instigate - A more conspicuous conflict. - - - - - CRY, NAKED AND PERSONAL - - - Conversation in oak trees, - Better than the talk of men - Because it ends where they begin - Futilely. - Ferns, and invasion of moss, - Waiting for the conquest of words - To dwindle with the years - And find, in the doom of green, - A mute and sprightly correction. - These trees do not proclaim - That men are fools or geniuses. - Their rustling tolerance - Does not seek to intrude - Upon the indifference of time, - And it is appropriate - That their leaves should wait to contain - The discarded syllables - Of human erudition. - - I have seen a man - Gaze upon an oak tree, - As one who hates a patient enemy. - Sensual desires and mental plots - Had marked his face not tenderly. - Combat of envy and pride - Gained the dilated prize of his eyes - As he looked upon the tree. - Then his voice achieved - The solace of admiration. - “The leaves are beautiful in Autumn. - This oak tree has a pleasant sturdiness.” - When confronted by a tree, - Or sunset prowling down the hills, - The sensual boast of men - Trembles with fear and raises - The shield of adoration. - - Look upon the oak tree - Without that simulated courage - Falsely wrung from soothing sound. - The oak tree is a living prison - Where the thoughts and lusts of men - Dangle to the whims of winds - And learn an unexpected tolerance. - Seek revenge upon the tree; - Dress it in capricious metaphor; - Fling your costumes on its frame. - Or, better still, realize - That the oak tree does not - Demolish the souls of men. - I say that all of nature - Is only the mingled womb and tomb - With which an ancient illusion - Perpetuates the religions that keep it alive. - Before I leave the oak tree - Laughter captures my lips. - Newton, a dry and wavering leaf, - Has fallen to the earth. - - - - - FANTASY - - - “Geography locates actual mountains, - Rivers, and valleys, while critics - Of literature and art - Draw imaginary maps - Small as the nail of an infant’s thumb. - Then nouns and adjectives - Are purchased and arranged - To magnify and defend the size - Of exquisite differences - In altitude, position, and direction. - Trivially vociferous, - Your geographical critics - Display their little maps to men - Whose eyes are already convinced - Or turned in another direction.” - Torban, a scholar from Mars, - Dropped his speech and laughed. - His laugh was the sound of a mountain - Emancipated by humour - And cavorting over the plains. - The mountain fled, but Torban remained, - Made gigantic by its aftermath. - For size does not reside - -[Illustration] - - In the legs and torsos - That men hug, frightened, or with glee. - He said: “Criticism in Mars - Resembles your hours of sleep. - Each night we leave creation; - Greet the steeply slanting beds; - And turn our large eyes inward - To a complicated cabaret: - Cabaret filled with relieving jigs; - Cabaret crammed with irascible magicians - Who persist in spoiling their little tricks - By proclaiming the honesty of their intentions; - Cabaret in which malice, - Dignified or torrential, - Turns creators into beetles - And slays them ingeniously; - Cabaret in which Erudition, - Tempted by emotional coquettes, - Swaggers greyly past the footlights; - Cabaret in which Lust - Defends itself with thoughtful monologues, - Stopping to expectorate - Into metaphysical cuspidors; - Cabaret in which the mind - Scorns the morphine of emotion - Until, exhausted, it is forced - Secretly to indulge in the drug; - Cabaret of toothless bickerings - That lisp like market-women - At an ancient Fair; - Cabaret in which Tolerance and Indifference - Sit on the floor below the banquet-table - And wait for crumbs that accidentally - Slip from the over-full plates; - Cabaret in which Logic - Swallows the whiskey of dogmas, - Reels to the little bed-chamber, - And gradually falls asleep; - Cabaret in which qualities, - Enlarged and beribboned, engage - In arguments with smaller qualities, - Each longing for the other’s size.” - Torban paused, and his smile, - A thread of quicksilver bettering his face, - Encouraged the purpose of my voice. - I said: “The cabaret that you describe - Reminds me of criticism on earth.” - He answered: “One difference exists. - We go to sleep before we criticize-- - An excellent antidote for truth and lies!” - - - - - HATRED OF METAPHOR AND SIMILE - - - Ta-ra-ta-ta! - The ancient horn is once more bleating - Its ephemeral plea to immortality. - Thus announced, the author of the play, - Naked, and with a scholar’s face - Ill-at-ease above the flesh, - Proclaims the purpose of the play. - His speech, long and unadorned, - Requires this concentrated translation: - - “Life is a sensual hunter - And only his trophies are real. - These protesting animals - May sometimes be cleverly scrutinized - By six or seven intellects - Secreted in the noisy audience.” - - Ta-ra-ta-ta! - The horn resounds, and its echoes - Are caught by an uproar of sounds-- - Excited disciples within the theater. - “Down with fantasy!” - “Realism and flesh forever!” - “No more lies about the soul!” - “Give us earth and logic!” - “Murder the mountebanks and butterflies!” - “Down with metaphor and simile!” - - The play is about to begin - When two unfortunate poets - Are discovered in the audience. - Morbid, grotesque, and nonchalant, - They wear involved, embroidered clothes - And smoke emotional cigarettes, - Flicking the ashes carefully - Into the rage of faces around them. - And one poet recommends - A ruffled, satirical vest for the hairy chest - Of a broad man seated near him. - With cries, in which the earthly illusion - Mounts its strident throne, - The audience expels the two poets - With ritual of feet and fists. - Unperturbed, the poets - Stoop to mend their embroidered sleeves - Tom by the frantic audience. - With this important task completed, - They stroll away. - - - - - TIME, INFINITY, AND ETERNITY, DESCEND UPON A BLACK DERBY HAT - - - Vicious and sincere, - The black derby hat flaunts itself - Upon the head of an amateur libertine. - The libertine is a nervous rascal - Asking too many favors - From one spear-point exalted by men, - But the black derby hat, - Poised and incorruptible, - Curves its black no to the senses. - To those who cannot see, - The black derby hat is only a sugar-bowl - Turned upside-down and out of place, - Or one of many crowns - Bestowing their ugly pathos - Upon the struggle of a nation, - Or the way in which a dreamer - Pitifully says hello to the stars, - Or a symbol of bulky manhood - Swaggering in an ancient trap. - But to eyes that can look beyond - The surface rites of America - Bending over bargain-counters of flesh, - The black derby hat is an alabaster - Sentinel, defending its realm - Against the pompous indifference - Of Time, Infinity, and Eternity. - The black derby hat is an outline of earth, - Bold and abrupt, remaining - Indifferent to the desperate commands - Of sex and greed, and he who wears it - Is only a helpful accident - Bringing publicity to the hat. - Uncompromising, the black derby hat - Suggests the blunt isolation of intellect, - And yet it may have been made - By some weak serf of emotion. - From the contact of incongruities - Life evolves the more perfect shape, - And so, the black derby hat, - Gliding through the frantic defeats - Of a city street, - Coolly protects its realm - Against the scarecrow-contempt - Of Time, Infinity, and Eternity. - - - - - I WALK UPON A STREET - - - Must I see a gutter - In which the hurried machination - Of water carries bits of apple peeling - To some profound, obscure intelligence? - And if the gutter is to me - Merely the masterful travel of brown - Speeding with odds and ends of red, - To lend importance to a dream, - Will this belief decrease my size - When death reproves my inefficient limbs? - - I walk upon a street - Where trite deceptions glide - Ceaselessly. - Upon this street the spasmodic revolt - Of color refuses to join - The orderly, substantial lie. - Scattered anarchists of color, - Thin and incorrupt, - Contend against the ponderous devices - Of lust for flesh and gold. - With a spiritual savageness - Colors bring their lucid treason - To ancient, shrouded tyrannies. - The knitted green of this girl’s sweater - Is a badge releasing - A cool republic of desire - Unrelated to earth. - Her famished opaque face - Feeds on sleek anticipations-- - Unconscious incongruity. - - Color alone is real, - Waving perpetually - Over the graves of thought and emotion. - From the vaster shapes of color - Small and involved broods of thought and emotion - Are born to scorn their distant mothers. - The ruffian dream recedes - Over a span of twenty thousand years, - And color, awake and supreme, - Waits to be once more divided - By another nightmare dream. - If men could see this they might kneel - Upon this sidewalk and observe - The importance of apple-peelings - Testing their spirals of red - Against the thick, brown stream. - - - - - THE INCURABLE MYSTIC ANSWERS WESTERN AMBITIONS - - - Western men, - Your life is a minor rhapsody - For flute and violin. - With sounds, now shrill, now suave, - You steal your hymns and frolics - From the surface dirt of realism - And the curves of sensuality. - Your feeble mysticism - Strains at the task of lifting tables - And placing naïve retorts - Into the mouths of spirits. - Your erudition is the vain - Gesture of your repentance - Grown over-thin and complex. - Western men, you are beggars - Devouring bits of guile - Tossed from a violent mirage. - The contours of a rose - Bribing the quiet madness of evening - With cunning promises of red, - Are more important than your sweating love - And the rushing dreads of your market-places. - The contours of a rose - Will still arrange their subtle dream - When your clever schemes of mud - Win the drifting pension of dust. - Your charts and diagrams - Are merely a ragamuffin’s initials - Cut into an ancient gateway - That guards the invisible meaning of life. - - - - - PLATONIC NARRATIVE - - - Tomato soup at four A. M. - We seemed to sit upon the floor - But, with a feathery discretion, - We advised our bodies - To make the floor a glistening fundamental - Flattened by the walk of centuries. - Continuing the advice, - We told our bodies to arrange - A variation on the floor - And give the floor a living - Reason for existence. - Our bodies, with clandestine movements, - Accepted the advice - And became the essences of Plato, - Almost tempting our flesh - To renounce its weight. - Our lifted knees were actors - Simulating treason to our souls, - With their prominence of bone. - They were interviewed - By elbows that held a light disbelief. - Our backs against the cushions - Had disappeared, and we did not move - For fear that all of us - Might rush away through the openings. - Our heads were fiercely bent down, - As though they felt an ecstasy - Of shame at their crudity ... - When we returned to the tomato soup - It was an insipid fluid, - But we drank it indifferently, - And it is also possible - That an unearthly laugh - Peered through the crevices of our eyes, - Finding no need for sound. - - - - - PORTRAITS - - - I. - - _Stenographer_ - - Intellect, - You are an electrical conspiracy - Between the advance guards of soul and mind. - Thoughts and spiritual instincts, - Profound and unfanatical, - Sit plotting against the enmity - That seeks to wall them in separate castles... - A thought and a spiritual instinct - Link themselves for an instant - Upon the face of this stenographer. - Unknown to her mind and speech - A gleam of intellect contradicts her features, - And she spies the jest of her relation - To the droning man beside her. - - This incredible news - Will be doubted by poets and scientists. - - - II. - - _Waitress_ - - Musicians and carpenters - Meet upon your trays of food: - Aesthetics and the flesh - Play their little joke upon dogma, - Urged by the rhythm of your hands. - Your rouged cheeks slip unnoticed - Through the sexless turmoil. - The rituals are hastened - Lest they become self-conscious... - I stop you and remark: - “The sylvan story of your hair - Is damaged by your rhinestone comb. - May I remove it?” Then you stare. - The fact that you have been - Greeted by something other than a wink - Almost causes you to think. - You walk away, holding an emotion - That skims the lips of many adjectives. - Confused, uncertain, scornful-- - With none of them fused together. - - - III. - - _Shop-Girl_ - - Yellow roses in your black hair - Hold the significance - Of stifled mystics defying Time. - Yellow roses in your black hair - Can become to certain eyes - The trivial details of emotion. - Yellow roses in your black hair - Often embarrass passing philosophers - Who suddenly realize - That they have been furtively snatching at color and light. - - Shop-girl, in the midst of your frolic, - Take this portrait without surprise. - Portraits are merely pretexts. - - - IV. - - _Manicurist_ - - Maudlin, hurt, morose, - Tender, angry, remote, - Whimsical, frigid, impatient-- - Compel these adjectives to become - Friendly to each other - And let them stumble in unison - Beneath the muscular trouble of life. - The careful Boss who sends them on - Holds one eye of bitterness - And another of sentimentality, - Closing each one on different occasions. - The careful Boss may be your soul, - Tired manicurist, amazing - The fragrant barber-shop - With words of valiant prose. - Ferretti, the mildly dying barber, - Loves his bald head with one finger - And whispers, “She’s crazy, I fire her tomorrow. - When customer ask her to eat with him - She laugh and tell him she no care - To pay too much for indigestion. - She’s crazy. I fire her tomorrow.” - - Ferretti does not know - That souls are not entirely unconcerned - With straining for effects. - - - V. - - _Housewife_ - - Seraphic and relaxed, you take - Your novel with uncertain thumbs, - As one who lingers over cake - And dreads the thought of final crumbs. - - Frown at my precious sorcery - And label me an envious elf. - If human beings could agree - Their boredom might revenge itself. - - O youthful housewife, weighing grains - Of joy upon your empty smile, - The total of my bolder gains - Is but a more impressive guile. - - Your serious child wins the alert - And limpid art of playing tag, - While your emotions rest inert - Like dried fruit in a paper bag. - - And yet I envy both of you - And wish that I could also find - The mildness of your fancied view, - Where feelings dance and thoughts are kind. - - - VI. - - _Woman_ - - They worship musical sound - Protecting the breast of emotion. - Their feelings pose as fortune-tellers - And angle for coins from credulous thoughts. - Shall we abandon this luxury - Of mild mist and wild raptures? - Your face refrains from saying yes - But your closed eyes roundly - Reward the luminous sentence. - Greece and Asia have exchanged - Problems upon your face, - And the fine poise of your head - Tries to catch their conversation. - Few people care to use - Thought as a musical instrument - That brings its singing restraint to grief and joy, - But we, with straight arms, will descend - Daringly upon this situation. - The full-blown confusion of life - Will detest our intrusion. - - - VII. - - _Old Actor_ - - Any minor poet can claim - That his subject resembles music. - (“Her steps were notes of music.” - “His presence was like a song.”) - You are a long-neglected - Instrument from which the player, - With over-confident lips, blows only - A jet of dust that falls upon - The damp chagrin of his face. - Moist from the futile effort - He asks his listeners to admire - Imaginary notes. - They clap their hands, and he must retire - To the slow digesting of his lie. - Old actor, you have finished reciting Hamlet; - Your pennies are gathered; and you depart. - - - - - NEGRO CRIMINAL - - - From the pensive treachery of my cell - I can hear your mournful yell. - Centuries of pain are pressed - Into one unconscious jest - As your scream disrobes your soul. - The silence of your iron hole - Is hot and stolid, like a guest - Weary of seeing men undressed. - Like the silence, I listen - Because I dread the glisten - Of a hidden humour that strains - Under the stumble of all pains. - Brown and wildly clownish shape - Thrown into a cell for rape, - You contain the tortured laugh - Of a pilgrim-imbecile whose staff - Taps against a massive comedy. - Melodrama burlesques itself with free - And stony voice, and wears a row of masks - To lure the joviality of tasks. - Melodrama, you, and I, - We are merely tongues that try - To ogle a protesting dream - Into whisper, laugh, and scream. - - - - - SHORT STORY IN SONNET FORM - - - Loud chatter in a thousand minor lines - Was your religion, and your art was pain - Disguised by phrases of verbose disdain. - You married an old man who gave you wines - Lukewarm and pink, until your tipsy youth, - Grown weary of evading sensual lies, - Ran to idiot-Pierrot whose cries - Created that delusion known as truth. - The ache of your sincerity betrayed - His awkward falseness, and he turned away, - Grinning until your bullet found his head. - Then people claimed that you had merely paid - Insanely for a tritely sordid play. - Your lyric could not answer--it was dead. - - - - - FEMININE TALK - - - _First Woman_ - - Do you share the present dread - Of being sentimental? - The world has flung its boutonnière - Into the mud, and steps upon it - With elaborate gestures! - - _Second Woman_ - - Sentimentality - Is the servant-girl of certain men - And the wife of others. - She scarcely ever flirts - With creative minds, - Striving also to become - Graceful and indiscreet. - - _First Woman_ - - Sappho and Aristotle - Have wandered through the centuries, - Dressed in an occasional novelty-- - A little twist of outward form. - They have always been ashamed - To be caught in a friendly talk. - - _Second Woman_ - - When emotion and the mind - Engage in deliberate dialogue, - One hundred nightingales - And intellectuals find a common ground, - And curse the meeting of their slaves! - - _First Woman_ - - The mind must only play - With polished relics of emotion, - And the heart must never lighten - Burdens of the mind. - - _Second Woman_ - - I desire to be - Irrelevant and voluble, - Leaving my terse disgust for a moment. - I have met an erudite poet - With a northern hardness - Motionless beneath his youthful robes. - He shuns the quivering fluencies - Of emotion, and shifts his dominoes - Within a room of tortured angles. - But away from this creative room - He sells himself to the whims - Of his wife, a young virago - With a calculating nose. - Beneath the flagrant pose - Of his double life - Emotion and the mind - Look disconsolately at each other. - - _First Woman_ - - Lyrical abandon - And mental cautiousness - Must not mingle to a magic - Glowing, yet deliberate. - - _Second Woman_ - - Never spill your wine - Upon a page of mathematics. - Drink it decently - Within the usual tavern. - - - - - THE SWORD CONVERSES WITH A PHILOSOPHER - - - _Sword_ - - The Hindoo raises his arms - And holds them level with his shoulders - Till they become still and permanent, like horizons. - But I prefer to stumble - Into abrupt harmonies - That must ever be flung aside. - With one quick slash I cut - Lips of death upon an expressionless breast, - And a vermilion sincerity - Pardons the sophistry of flesh. - It is better to make - And leave the moments of a poem - Than to erect an ingenious pedestal - Upon which blindness solemnly squats. - - _Philosopher_ - - Men’s tongues are slow, and they have made you - To avenge their hidden shame at this. - You give startling girdles to virgins, - Red beards to thieves, - And writhing necklaces to children, - Because the tongues of men are slow - And revel in your quicker rhythms. - An idiot whirls you around his head - And persuades himself that he is swift. - Imagination drenches his eyes - And he spreads himself flat on your blade. - - _Sword_ - - All of your words are concentrated - Into the glittering censure of my blade! - - _Philosopher_ - - Life wraps its layer of touch around one, - Like a haunting blanket - Smothering the taunting lips of a child. - Curving their fingers around your hilt - Men strive to purchase the triumph - Of an imagined escape. - I teach them plaintively to weave - Schemes of consolation - On the broad texture of their lives. - You tell them to slash the fabric, - Reaching into the black space underneath it. - You are not a symbol of cruelty. - An innocent impatience - Sharpens the comedy of your blade. - - _Sword_ - - Men have only two choices-- - To worship idols or mimic fireflies, - And I lend my strength to each choice, - Teaching them to abandon - The harlequin raptures of words. - - _Philosopher_ - - You bring them yearning turbulence, - And I, a quick-tongued refuge. - Silence will pardon both of us. - - - - - CAPTAIN SIMMONS - - - An arbitrary architect - Became his mind, and planned - Cathedrals, mansions, and shops - In a room enclosed by hair. - And so a crowded town - Occupied the dwarfed miles in his head, - And along the boundary-line - That separated thought from emotion - Darkly seething slums grew up. - Owing to the lack of space - Prevailing in mental slums, - Some buildings had been forced - Into the realm of emotion. - Within these structures half-breeds lived-- - Creatures whose inconsequent - Color prevented them - From being entirely logical, - And whose reeking impulses - Were deplorably snubbed by thought. - Being from the slums of mind - These hybrids loved the dirt of arguments - Inherited from centuries of men, - Stopping now and then - To order emotional brandy. - - It is unnecessary - To tell that Captain Simmons was old, - With a body like the fading dream - Of an athlete, and a face - Made womanly by age. - - - - - MORE ABOUT CAPTAIN SIMMONS - - - Captain Simmons’ legs - Were praying after much capering. - Legs can pray without kneeling - When they steal pity from city streets. - On Captain Simmons’ face - Wrinkled inhibitions were giving - Moth-eaten lace to that soft tolerance - Where memory and dying desire sleep without dreams. - Captain Simmons’ black suit - Fitted him loosely while his mind - Became him tightly, and the reason - Flickered in his smile. - For all of life he had hidden - Beneath a loose generosity - In order to escape the fact - That certain of his thoughts - Were supplied with tights and slyness, - And his smile was a lit candle held - For a moment uncertainly over this situation. - If one mentioned that Captain Simmons - Was possessed by the plight of eyes - Like pinched chicaneries of fate, - Above a face of visual penuries, - One would only hide his essential parts - Beneath the futility of explanation. - - - - - CAPTAIN SIMMONS’ WIFE - - - She moved in a calculating trot, - Relinquishing hairsbreadths of her life - With each step, and gathering - Atoms of humour and melancholy - Into one last excuse for existence. - It is true that she was playing - Housewife to her thoughts and emotions. - Her intangible household had attained - A weak and exquisite indirectness, - And she fiddled with its meager neatness; - Protected them as they stooped - Over the knitting of remorse; - Fed them platters of minced scandal - And mildly censured the relish with which they ate; - Persuaded them that they could dream best - When they were uncomfortable; - Swept out bedrooms for fear - That the talkative candour of her dislikes - Might falter in the presence of dust; - And clinked the silver on side-boards - In an effort to convince herself - That she was still robustly mercenary. - - Again, she scanned the spots - On a bridal-gown and planned, - As she had done for years - To send it to an imaginary cleaner. - - - - - NORTH CLARK STREET, CHICAGO - - - I. - - Tame and ghastly coffins - Display their shamefaced grays and reds - Against the passive vividness of morning. - From the base of these large coffins - Men and women walk, - Like briskly servile automata. - Some repentant toy-maker - Has given them a cunning pretense of life. - - A waitress hurries to her work. - Her yellow hair and face stained red - Blend into a garish mendicant - Who steals unreal composure from the morning. - Behind her tramps a bloodless Jew. - The stench of endless denials - Has wrenched his youthful face - Into a prophecy of middle age. - He does not see the lamely leaden - Shop-girl, where despair and apathy, - Fighting, produce the motion of her limbs. - She does not see this elderly laborer - Upon whose face an artist - -[Illustration] - - Lies smashed and gasping for breath, - And he does not regard - This thread irresolutely falling - From a tapestry of memory: - This slender woman in black. - The glittering indifference of morning - Divides their faces. - - - II. - - Afternoon has fallen on this street, - Like an imbecilic organ-grinder - Grinning over his discords. - Dead men and women spin - Their miracles of motion - Upon the grayness of this street. - In this old Jew’s shop - A woman bargains over calico. - With a ghostly naïveté - She reprimands the price of her shroud. - In this pawn-shop stands a man - Parting with his clarinet. - He walks away, with dangling arms, - Like a swindled Gabriel. - In a lunchroom sits a woman - Whose face is a tired sin - Seeking comfort in religion. - A young girl near her is an angel - Puzzled by streaks of mud upon her face - And asking questions of her vanity. - Outside, dead men and women - Are whipped on by the explosive magic - Of an old, resistless masquerade. - Street-cars, wagons, and motor-trucks - Rattle their parodies on life, - And over all the afternoon - Twists, like an imbecilic organ-grinder - Snickering over his discords. - - - III. - - Night has thrown his ecstasy - Of staring, counterfeit eyes - Over the torrent of this street. - Men with faces quicker - And more furtive than time - Stand motionless in doorways. - Women stride down this street. - Many fingers have pulled their faces - To a haggard lack of expression. - They join the motionless men - In the doorways and disappear. - And over them the tame and ghastly coffins - Display their shamefaced grays and reds - Against the tangled vividness of night. - - - - - LANDSCAPE - - - The countless vagaries of maple leaves, - Elastic humbleness of flowers and weeds, - The hill, a placid stoic to all creeds, - They use an obvious language that deceives - The subtle theories of human ears. - Their tongue is motion and they scorn the rhyme - And meter made by men to soothe their fears. - - Beneath the warm strength of each August hour - They spurn cohesion and the plans of thought, - With quick simplicity that seems confused - Because it signals mystic whims that tower - Above the thoughts and loves that men have caught: - Beyond the futile words that men have used. - - - - - COUNTRY GIRL - - - Your face is stencilled with a pensiveness. - Your face contains a minor lyric trapped - By dainty ignorance, and tamely capped - By hair as trimly lifeless as your dress. - You suffer from the drooling praise of old - And youthful men, who strive to win a blind - And soothing admiration from your mind, - And do not try to make your thoughts unfold. - - This comedy would fade into a host - If it were not rewarded by the dead - But unrelenting poet on your face. - Your eyes are heavy with his reckless ghost: - The trouble of his hands is on your head - As you peer out into a clouded space. - - - - - NONDESCRIPT TYPIST - - - Within an office whose exterior - Resembles an ultra-conservative mind - You battle with the avaricious words - Of a meager, petrified man. - Your face is brown stagnation - Sometimes astounded by a thrust - Of chattering wistfulness. - Bravery is fear - Effectively sneering at itself, - And you are forever wavering - Upon the edge of this condition. - Yet your obscurity - Is an important atom - In the mysterious march of time. - - - - - CONCERNING EMOTIONS - - - And if I say that pain is but - A circus barker whose loud cries - Seek to reward a trivial show, - Will you confess that I am wise? - - “Must it be emotional?” you asked, - After I had thrown - Words into a carnival-scope. - Sobriety and merriment - Borrowed the sixteenth century - Within your voice, and sought - The identity of sternness-- - Mental sternness pretending to ignore - The confetti thrown by emotion - In a carnival unique. - - Emotions can be prancing curves - Fashioned by relaxing thoughts. - Should I kiss you, Questioner, - The delicate anti-climax - Of a mental caper - Might perish on crimson vapor! - Tired of frenzies and satiations - Emotions often wander to poets - And ask for more fantastic decisions - For fire that glows but does not burn. - - - - - METAPHYSICAL ELIZABETH - - - They gave you strait-jackets to bore you. - Like an unwilling promise - Your legs were tied together. - But people can only violate - Their own conception of reality, - And your actual curves - Preserved their sculptural liberty. - Leaving their semblance on your flesh - Your lines sped inward till they gained - The center where emotion changes - To a speck of quivering clarity. - - Within you phantoms of reality - Danced with plausibilities of mind, - Seeking to be consumed - By the oblivion which is understanding. - You feared that your return to motion - Would mean a succession of disappointments-- - Tamely grazing arrows - Changed to wounds by the desiring heart - Take my hand and move. - Only two statues can stride together - In a manner invisible - Save to certain unreasonable adjustments - Of eyesight and of hearing. - - - - - DESCRIPTION AND EXHORTATION - - - Truly, this age will be known - As one of minute extremes - Courting an elderly shape - In a violent bar-room scene. - An Amazon made filthy by centuries, - And fuming pygmies, own the stage. - Thin furies of emotion - Name every color in the rainbow - Without its skillful assent, - And little mental skeletons - Stamp with clumsy weirdness - On effigies of the heart. - The pygmies often sneak - To the prancing Amazon - And the ensuing love-scene produces - Small memories of Walt Whitman. - - This age is not metaphysical. - Followers of Dada, - Weary of electron-soliloquies - And fleshly ecstasies with flat feet, - Sit in the gallery - And throw loose malice at the display, - Evading their motives with an eager creed. - - Concentrate your aim, - Followers of Dada. - - - - - INEVITABLE - - - The insurrection of a flea - Compared to driving tusks - Of elephants, is just as strong. - Stupidity need not be long. - - The insurrection of a flea - Attains philosophy and spice. - Fleas salt their eating with a creed - That warms the monotone of greed. - - The insurrection of a flea - Will leave with tense insistence till - The suburbs of eternity. - O small fanatic on a spree. - - The flea is poet in a land - That does not understand his lunge. - He makes his own immaculate laws - And awaits forever threatening claws. - - - - - THE NEGROES WHO TURNED WHITE - - - The souls of negroes, thrown into a shout, - Roll their hallelujahs out - To the flashing blandness of the sky. - The sky does not divide their cries - Into meanings foolish and wise: - To the sky all men have but one cry. - Still, amusement has often thrown - Separate shades upon the monotone, - Playing with the sleep of firm beliefs. - Amused, we give these negroes forms - Distinct and bounding under storms - Of sounds that catapult their joys and griefs. - A negro with his bald despair - Seduced by remnants of silver hair, - Converses with an old King known as God. - He longs to have his tortured stare - Rewarded with a golden chair - While other negroes thump the sod - With heavy echoes of his request. - With a cold, castrated zest - He pleads for rest, and he is bold, - While scientists and troubadours - Cling more closely to their floors. - - “How d’yah kno-ow, how d’yah kno-o-ow - Dat the blood done sign mah na-a-ame? - Yes it’s so-o-o, yes it’s so-o-o, - Jesus wrote it down in fla-a-ame.” - - The other negroes sing - With gliding fear, and swing - The child-like joke of their arms to emotions - That surge like an army searching for its eyes. - But suddenly a quick surprise - Tricks each negro’s face with fright-- - Their skins are gleaming pink and white. - White philosophers and scientists - Strike each other with dubious fists - Within the negroes’ brains, while poets fight - Like blistered urchins wrapped in gloom. - Shrinking underneath the uproar - With its bursts of phantom gore, - The negroes shriek against their doom. - With bending celebration of knees - They crush against their leader’s pleas. - - “Lord Almighty, make us black! - This strange noise strikes us on the back! - We has had enough of whips! - Calm this devil with your lips!” - - - - - EXPRESSIONS ON A CHILD’S FACE - - - Dawn?--no, the hunted transparency of dawn - Curving from the white throat of a child - And shaken in the still cup of his face. - Then a sudden dispersal of swerving light - Carrying away the defeated - Wisdom of a smile. - - Thought?--no, the persistent shudder - Of emotion that is almost thought. - The invisible recklessness of perfume - Enveloping the beginning of a question. - - Sadness?--no, the growth of a dim inclination - To delve into the rancid importance of flesh: - Then weeping, to wash away - The ritual of disappointment. - - - - - PSYCHIC CLOWNS - - - _First Clown_ - - We gaze upon a negro shoveling coal. - His muscles fuse into a poem - Stifled and sinister, - Censuring the happy rhetoric of morning air. - Some day he will pitch the stretched simplicity - Of his tent upon the contented ruins - Of a civilization, - Playing with documents and bottles of perfume - Found in deserted, broken corridors. - - _Second Clown_ - - The barbarous comedy - Lost in profuse confessions - And often described as life, - Lends an attitude of conviction - To the mechanical retreat of time. - - _First Clown_ - - Do you hear beneath the irregular strut - Of this city an imperceptible groan? - Time is turning the jail-house key. - They build larger jails for time; - He makes larger keys of blood-stained iron. - Endlessly he emerges - From complicated delusions of freedom. - - _Second Clown_ - - That desperately grotesque - Wanton known as imagination - Can plunge beyond both men and time. - Imagination slips down - Upon the last edges of thought and feeling - And teaches them to transcend - The forlorn bravado of swinging legs and arms. - - _First Clown_ - - We are two psychic clowns - Brandishing the poverty of words - Into insolent oddities of sound. - Come, men are waiting to nail us - Upon the crucifix of their little logics! - - - - - DEAR MINNA - - - Catastrophe in a bric-a-brac shop. - The proprietor lies murdered. - Pieces of cups, jars, and vases - Have attained the disorderly freedom - So obnoxious to bankrupt fanatics. - Once the cups, jars, and vases - Were symmetrical and empty, - And immersed in the task of holding nothing. - Now they have snatched a voice from fragments; - Spell many an accidental sentence; - Renounce the hollow lie. - Death, you take the stiffly obvious shapes - Of objects and crack them with your fingers-- - A shattered invitation - To curiosity and anticipation-- - And I am grateful to you for that. - My eyes grow weary scanning the living array. - Each man takes his inch upon the shelves - And will not move, until your paw - Robs him of microscopical convictions. - - Dear Minna, read the newspapers - And gloat with me over death’s industry. - Banker, Freudian, Socialist, - Knocked from the shelves and changed - To symbols that can lure conjecture. - It is well that we are metaphysical. - Death must not become - A mere black frame surrounding - The memorized reiterations. - Death must remain an irresistible - Beckoning to reckless speculations - And continue to offer an amorous arm - To the recalcitrant antics of words. - - - - - VILLAGE CLERK - - - Rabelais and Maeterlinck - Have subsided to one grin - Upon your sharply cumbersome face. - Coarseness and a psychic hope - Dominate your voice - As you prattle to women - Purchasing sugar and salt. - Then your face and voice - Alter to a serious fraud - Eagerly learning the technique of deceptions, - As you answer this dryly emasculated - Grey-beard, discussing the tendencies in hogs. - - When the night replenishes - Your store of morbid desires, - You will try to piece together - A cajoling violin - From your sweet-heart’s syllables, - Fumbling with hot hands for the unseen strings. - - - - - REALISM - - - Regard an American farm. - That jaded collaborator, - Daylight, has just arrived. - Wavy signal of smoke - From the wooden farm-house disappears - Beneath the bluely ascetic lack of interest. - Horses, pigs, and cows - Assemble their discontent. - The result is a Chinese orchestra - Devoid of discipline and cohesion, - With all of the players intoxicated. - The animals do not realize - That their voices should portray - The farmer in the angular house; - The hackneyed prose of his life; - The expanding soul of his corn-fields. - Turn from the absence of human wisdom - And see the lights in the farm-house. - Dimly circumscribed and steady, - They symbolize future events. - The farm-hand walks to the barn, - With an ox-like dragging of feet. - Black shirt, and overalls - Whose color has been removed by dirt, - Obscure the heavy knots of his body. - His cork-screw nose ascends - To the eyes of an unperturbed pig. - Love and hate to him - Are mouthfuls of coarse food hastily gulped - During lulls in his muscular slavery. - Beneath the slanting pungency - Of the barn he vanishes, - And with meaningless sounds - He pays his meager tribute to life. - Then the farmer persuades his age - To indulge in an unwilling stumble - Across the yard. - His grey beard is the end of a rope - That has gradually throttled his face. - Within him, avarice - Is awkwardly practising the rhythms - Of weak emotions benignly, belatedly - Preparing for celestial rewards. - Within the cluttered farm-yard - He stands, a figure of niggardly order. - - Earth, the men who scrape at your flanks - Can never stop to examine - The thin line of speech that goes adventuring - Where your brown hills bite the sky. - - - - - AMERICAN VAUDEVILLE SHOW - - - This vacuous, clattering spectacle - Has collected the heart-beats of a nation. - Greed, like a gorged Machiavelli, - Slumps down in the green plush seat - And wonders whether it has not blundered, - While a sentimental song, - Like a kindly infant, - Interferes with the clink of coins. - Hatred, juvenile and deformed, - Earns the smirking oblivion - Of fat women mangling sound. - The wrangling babble of ignorance - Turns to silence underneath - The opium of innuendoes. - Acrobats appear and seem - To be raping phantom lovers - No longer beautiful and fresh - But mechanically endured. - Part of the audience is also - A battered stoic clasping worn-out mistresses. - Clog-dancers enervate - The thumping martyrs of their feet, - And chorus-girls offer the lines of their bodies - With whining voices. - - Dreams are cheap, and green plush seats - Appropriately, snugly hold - The expensive hallucinations. - - [Illustration: colophon] - - _Printing Service_ - _Company_ - _Chicago_ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sardonic Arm, by Maxwell Bodenheim - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SARDONIC ARM *** - -***** This file should be named 60114-0.txt or 60114-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/1/60114/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Sardonic Arm - -Author: Maxwell Bodenheim - -Release Date: August 17, 2019 [EBook #60114] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SARDONIC ARM *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -book was produced from images made available by the -HathiTrust Digital Library.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="346" height="550" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"><h1><img src="images/i_title.png" -width="450" -alt="SARDONIC ARM - -Bodenheim.— - -1923 COVICI-McGEE CHICAGO" -/></h1> -</div> - -<p class="c">Copyright 1923<br /> -Covici-McGee<br /> -Chicago</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border-left:3px solid black;border-right:3px solid black;"> -<tr><td class="cb">This is a limited edition of 575 copies of -which<br /> 550 copies are for sale and this copy is<br /> -No. 559.</td></tr> -</table> - -<p> </p> - -<p class="cb">DEDICATED TO MINNA AND FEYDA</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">—They will meet under<br /></span> -<span class="i3">different circumstances<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2 class="c"><span class="smcap"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a> -<img src="images/contents.png" -width="150" -alt="Contents" -/></span></h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CONCERNING_AMERICA">CONCERNING AMERICA</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CRY_NAKED_AND_PERSONAL">CRY, NAKED AND PERSONAL</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#FANTASY">FANTASY</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_6">6</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#HATRED_OF_METAPHOR_AND_SIMILE">HATRED OF METAPHOR AND SIMILE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_9">9</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#TIME_INFINITY_AND_ETERNITY_DESCEND_UPON_A_BLACK_DERBY_HAT">TIME, INFINITY AND ETERNITY DESCEND UPON A BLACK DERBY HAT</a> </td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_11">11</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#I_WALK_UPON_A_STREET">I WALK UPON A STREET</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_13">13</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_INCURABLE_MYSTIC_ANSWERS_WESTERN_AMBITIONS">THE INCURABLE MYSTIC ANSWERS WESTERN AMBITIONS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_15">15</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PLATONIC_NARRATIVE">PLATONIC NARRATIVE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_17">17</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PORTRAITS">PORTRAITS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_19">19</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#NEGRO_CRIMINAL">NEGRO CRIMINAL</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_26">26</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#SHORT_STORY_IN_SONNET_FORM">SHORT STORY IN SONNET FORM</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_27">27</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#FEMININE_TALK">FEMININE TALK</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_28">28</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_SWORD_CONVERSES_WITH_A_PHILOSOPHER">THE SWORD CONVERSES WITH A PHILOSOPHER</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_31">31</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CAPTAIN_SIMMONS">CAPTAIN SIMMONS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#MORE_ABOUT_CAPTAIN_SIMMONS">MORE ABOUT CAPTAIN SIMMONS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_36">36</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CAPTAIN_SIMMONS_WIFE">CAPTAIN SIMMONS’ WIFE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_37">37</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#NORTH_CLARK_STREET_CHICAGO">NORTH CLARK STREET, CHICAGO</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_38">38</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#LANDSCAPE">LANDSCAPE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_41">41</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#COUNTRY_GIRL">COUNTRY GIRL</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_42">42</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#NONDESCRIPT_TYPIST">NONDESCRIPT TYPIST</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_43">43</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CONCERNING_EMOTIONS">CONCERNING EMOTIONS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_44">44</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#METAPHYSICAL_ELIZABETH">METAPHYSICAL ELIZABETH</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#DESCRIPTION_AND_EXHORTATION">DESCRIPTION AND EXHORTATION</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_46">46</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#INEVITABLE">INEVITABLE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_47">47</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_NEGROES_WHO_TURNED_WHITE">THE NEGROES WHO TURNED WHITE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_48">48</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#EXPRESSIONS_ON_A_CHILDS_FACE">EXPRESSIONS ON A CHILD’S FACE</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_50">50</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PSYCHIC_CLOWNS">PSYCHIC CLOWNS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_51">51</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#DEAR_MINNA">DEAR MINNA</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_53">53</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#VILLAGE_CLERK">VILLAGE CLERK</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#REALISM">REALISM</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_56">56</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#AMERICAN_VAUDEVILLE_SHOW">AMERICAN VAUDEVILLE SHOW</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_58">58</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2 class="c"><a name="Reluctant_Foreword" id="Reluctant_Foreword"></a> -<img src="images/reluctant.png" -width="320" -alt="Reluctant Foreword" -/></h2> - -<p><i>If I yield to the remorseful redundancy of a foreword, with its -bedraggled battalions of fiercely insinuating words, it is from no mere -desire to invite the ridicule of impatient time, or to rail against that -host of vacant insincerities which betrays the animations of life. It -may be that I do not look upon words as intimidating a fixed content, or -beckoning to an inevitable style. It may be that I regard words as -flexible lures seducing the essential emptiness of life, with little, -false promises—promises of emotional and mental gain and reward; haloes -and bludgeons with which a void may attain the mirage of toiling or -dancing importance. And perhaps, in the desperate hope of achieving a -proper festival of sound, I have summoned words to a reiteration of -defeated antics, without in any way attempting to gain those exhausted -futilities known as convictions and explanations. And if, through this -foreword, I can revel in a pensive obscurity—a veil that must be -carefully removed with the reading of poems that follow—I shall feel -that I have furnished the exercise of amusement to certain sterile and -over-confident rituals of emotion and mind.</i></p> - -<p><i>The poetic situation in America is, indeed, a blustering and verbose -invitation to boredom and a slight, reviling headache. When not engaged -in scrubbing the window pane ten times over, lest it prove opaque to an -astigmatic public, American poets are discovering, with great glee, the -perspiring habits and routines of sex, or naively deifying the local -mannerisms of a blithely juvenile country—a lurching, colloquial, -fist-swinging melee of milkmen depositing bottles on doorsteps and -acquiring dignity in the process; chorus-girls and farmhands telling -their troubles in a stilted slang; factory-owners falling in love with -their female employees, to the tune of delicate and novel symbolism -concerning “a longing to enter the house of her being”; ravings over the -strength and poignancy of corn-fields and country-roads—“O, the corn, -how it aches!” and “What is better than the patient and sturdy road?”—; -much roaring about the importance and hard beauty of mills and -factories—crudely smoky boxes of avarice faced by little, kneeling -poets.... Ah, the list, when extended, defies amusement. You must leave -the theater unless you desire the thankless experience of vomiting.</i></p> - -<p><i>The commercial cacophony of American lusts and greeds has borrowed a -clarinet, a flute, and a saxophone from the admiration of American -poets and is one-stepping with thousands of words, after the office and -factory have closed for the day, “Swee-et Mama, well your papa’s done -gone mad!”—the jerky, leering pandemonium of actual jazz on a polished -floor interests me far more than its more proper and adulterated -echoes—the glorious American poets of our time.</i></p> - -<p><i>There are, again, American poets who have turned their eyes to Europe, -yes, the fact is apparent—they have turned their eyes to Europe, and -they can, on occasion, become cynical animals, discovering seven -thousand different ways of describing the contortions that lead to -sexual intercourse, and displaying breasts and limbs with an infinite -amount of abandoned bravado. Again, they have heard of the European -Dadaists, yes, undoubtedly they have heard of the European Dadaists, and -they have now reduced the pronoun “I” to “i,” commenced their lines with -small letters, and exhibited a brave and startling hatred for commas and -separate words. In Europe, this literary revolution holds a distorted -incisiveness and many an original thought, heaved up from the -catastrophe of words. In America, certain poets, with great gusto, have -torn three buttons from their coats and are standing on their heads. -Yawning, we turn the page to the greyly psychological school of -poets—William James and Havelock Ellis, viewed with ecstasy behind a -magnifying glass, while someone provides a blurred replica of Bach’s -music.</i></p> - -<p><i>That tantalizing obscurity of words, luring the nimbleness of mental -regard—subtlety—and those deliberate acrobatics that form an original -style—both are waiting for the melodrama, comedy and lecture to -subside. Alas, what a long waiting is before them—pity these two -aristocrats and admire their isolated tenacity. Drop the trivial gift of -a tear, also, upon a wilted, elaborate figure thrown into cell number -thirty-two and trying to remember that his name was once Intellect. Then -deposit the lengthened confession of a sigh upon another drooping form -known as Delicate Fantasy—an elusive Liar who ravishes colors without -mentioning their names (not the endless blue, green, white, yellow, red, -lavender, mauve, pink, brown, cerise, golden, orange, and purple of -American Imagists). They have kicked him into the cellar, damn them. -Recognize the importance of his bruises. And also, spy, in the loosely -naive tumult, an agile, self-possessed pilgrim known as Irony. They have -kicked him in the stomach, these symbols of earth triumphant.... And -now, you must not look upon these words as a stormy unfolding of -conviction and explanation. The American spectacle has aroused a mood; -words conceal the essential helplessness; and the lurking emptiness -behind life separates into little, curious divisions of sound. The -undulations have ended.</i></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/sardonic.png" -width="300" -alt="The -SARDONIC ARM" -/></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CONCERNING_AMERICA" id="CONCERNING_AMERICA"></a>CONCERNING AMERICA</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Agitated child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Listening to the words of clown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Charlatan, blackguard, clergyman,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And vainly trying to follow their commands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Simultaneously, with legs and arms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swinging like demented Jehovahs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The plastic shapelessness of mud<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waits to receive your castigated fevers.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the children whose inarticulate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hearts smashed together make your body—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The burly, waggish rogue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Paid to dance in your cabarets;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shoulder-shaking girl<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who mistakes one shiver for immortality;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The roughly earnest gunman<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose blundering insurrection<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clutches a cool device;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The man whose eyes are coins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Encased in viscous white;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fox-like politician<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leaping on small prizes in the dark;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The farmer, lending his different costume<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the ox-like patience of earth;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The manual laborers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With minds as minute and obscure as bricks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And softly prominent hearts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The factory-girls who try to scold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The murmur of their souls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With one hundred slang phrases—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All of them will lose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their imaginary differences<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the lenient refuge of mud.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But their souls, ridiculously<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ignorant of national boundary-lines,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And amused at the physical promise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or ruin that men extract<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tortuously from life—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their souls will instigate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A more conspicuous conflict.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="CRY_NAKED_AND_PERSONAL" id="CRY_NAKED_AND_PERSONAL"></a>CRY, NAKED AND PERSONAL</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Conversation in oak trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Better than the talk of men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because it ends where they begin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Futilely.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ferns, and invasion of moss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waiting for the conquest of words<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dwindle with the years<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And find, in the doom of green,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mute and sprightly correction.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These trees do not proclaim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That men are fools or geniuses.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their rustling tolerance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Does not seek to intrude<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the indifference of time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it is appropriate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That their leaves should wait to contain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The discarded syllables<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of human erudition.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I have seen a man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gaze upon an oak tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As one who hates a patient enemy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sensual desires and mental plots<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had marked his face not tenderly.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Combat of envy and pride<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gained the dilated prize of his eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he looked upon the tree.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then his voice achieved<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The solace of admiration.<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“The leaves are beautiful in Autumn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This oak tree has a pleasant sturdiness.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When confronted by a tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or sunset prowling down the hills,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sensual boast of men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trembles with fear and raises<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shield of adoration.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Look upon the oak tree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without that simulated courage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Falsely wrung from soothing sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The oak tree is a living prison<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the thoughts and lusts of men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dangle to the whims of winds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And learn an unexpected tolerance.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seek revenge upon the tree;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dress it in capricious metaphor;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fling your costumes on its frame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, better still, realize<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the oak tree does not<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Demolish the souls of men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">I say that all of nature<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is only the mingled womb and tomb<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With which an ancient illusion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Perpetuates the religions that keep it alive.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before I leave the oak tree<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laughter captures my lips.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Newton, a dry and wavering leaf,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has fallen to the earth.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="FANTASY" id="FANTASY"></a>FANTASY</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">“Geography locates actual mountains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rivers, and valleys, while critics<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of literature and art<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Draw imaginary maps<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Small as the nail of an infant’s thumb.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then nouns and adjectives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are purchased and arranged<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To magnify and defend the size<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of exquisite differences<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In altitude, position, and direction.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trivially vociferous,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your geographical critics<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Display their little maps to men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose eyes are already convinced<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or turned in another direction.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Torban, a scholar from Mars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dropped his speech and laughed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His laugh was the sound of a mountain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Emancipated by humour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cavorting over the plains.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mountain fled, but Torban remained,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made gigantic by its aftermath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For size does not reside<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_006fp.jpg" width="300" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In the legs and torsos<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That men hug, frightened, or with glee.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said: “Criticism in Mars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resembles your hours of sleep.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each night we leave creation;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Greet the steeply slanting beds;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And turn our large eyes inward<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a complicated cabaret:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret filled with relieving jigs;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret crammed with irascible magicians<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who persist in spoiling their little tricks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By proclaiming the honesty of their intentions;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which malice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dignified or torrential,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turns creators into beetles<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And slays them ingeniously;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which Erudition,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tempted by emotional coquettes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swaggers greyly past the footlights;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which Lust<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Defends itself with thoughtful monologues,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stopping to expectorate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into metaphysical cuspidors;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which the mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scorns the morphine of emotion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until, exhausted, it is forced<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secretly to indulge in the drug;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret of toothless bickerings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That lisp like market-women<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At an ancient Fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which Tolerance and Indifference<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sit on the floor below the banquet-table<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wait for crumbs that accidentally<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slip from the over-full plates;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which Logic<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swallows the whiskey of dogmas,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reels to the little bed-chamber,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gradually falls asleep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cabaret in which qualities,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enlarged and beribboned, engage<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In arguments with smaller qualities,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each longing for the other’s size.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Torban paused, and his smile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thread of quicksilver bettering his face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Encouraged the purpose of my voice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I said: “The cabaret that you describe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reminds me of criticism on earth.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He answered: “One difference exists.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We go to sleep before we criticize—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An excellent antidote for truth and lies!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="HATRED_OF_METAPHOR_AND_SIMILE" id="HATRED_OF_METAPHOR_AND_SIMILE"></a>HATRED OF METAPHOR AND SIMILE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ta-ra-ta-ta!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ancient horn is once more bleating<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its ephemeral plea to immortality.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus announced, the author of the play,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Naked, and with a scholar’s face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ill-at-ease above the flesh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Proclaims the purpose of the play.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His speech, long and unadorned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Requires this concentrated translation:<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">“Life is a sensual hunter<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And only his trophies are real.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These protesting animals<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May sometimes be cleverly scrutinized<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By six or seven intellects<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secreted in the noisy audience.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ta-ra-ta-ta!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The horn resounds, and its echoes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are caught by an uproar of sounds—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Excited disciples within the theater.<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“Down with fantasy!”<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“Realism and flesh forever!”<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“No more lies about the soul!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span>”<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“Give us earth and logic!”<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“Murder the mountebanks and butterflies!”<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“Down with metaphor and simile!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The play is about to begin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When two unfortunate poets<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are discovered in the audience.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Morbid, grotesque, and nonchalant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They wear involved, embroidered clothes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smoke emotional cigarettes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flicking the ashes carefully<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the rage of faces around them.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And one poet recommends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A ruffled, satirical vest for the hairy chest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a broad man seated near him.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cries, in which the earthly illusion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mounts its strident throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The audience expels the two poets<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With ritual of feet and fists.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unperturbed, the poets<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stoop to mend their embroidered sleeves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tom by the frantic audience.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With this important task completed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They stroll away.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="TIME_INFINITY_AND_ETERNITY_DESCEND_UPON_A_BLACK_DERBY_HAT" id="TIME_INFINITY_AND_ETERNITY_DESCEND_UPON_A_BLACK_DERBY_HAT"></a>TIME, INFINITY, AND ETERNITY, DESCEND UPON A BLACK DERBY HAT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Vicious and sincere,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The black derby hat flaunts itself<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the head of an amateur libertine.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The libertine is a nervous rascal<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Asking too many favors<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From one spear-point exalted by men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the black derby hat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Poised and incorruptible,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curves its black no to the senses.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To those who cannot see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The black derby hat is only a sugar-bowl<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turned upside-down and out of place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or one of many crowns<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bestowing their ugly pathos<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the struggle of a nation,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or the way in which a dreamer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pitifully says hello to the stars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or a symbol of bulky manhood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swaggering in an ancient trap.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to eyes that can look beyond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The surface rites of America<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bending over bargain-counters of flesh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The black derby hat is an alabaster<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sentinel, defending its realm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the pompous indifference<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Time, Infinity, and Eternity.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The black derby hat is an outline of earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bold and abrupt, remaining<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Indifferent to the desperate commands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of sex and greed, and he who wears it<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is only a helpful accident<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bringing publicity to the hat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uncompromising, the black derby hat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suggests the blunt isolation of intellect,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet it may have been made<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By some weak serf of emotion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the contact of incongruities<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Life evolves the more perfect shape,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so, the black derby hat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gliding through the frantic defeats<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a city street,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coolly protects its realm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the scarecrow-contempt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Time, Infinity, and Eternity.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="I_WALK_UPON_A_STREET" id="I_WALK_UPON_A_STREET"></a>I WALK UPON A STREET</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Must I see a gutter<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In which the hurried machination<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of water carries bits of apple peeling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To some profound, obscure intelligence?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if the gutter is to me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Merely the masterful travel of brown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speeding with odds and ends of red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lend importance to a dream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will this belief decrease my size<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When death reproves my inefficient limbs?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I walk upon a street<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where trite deceptions glide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ceaselessly.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon this street the spasmodic revolt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of color refuses to join<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The orderly, substantial lie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Scattered anarchists of color,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thin and incorrupt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Contend against the ponderous devices<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of lust for flesh and gold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a spiritual savageness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Colors bring their lucid treason<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">To ancient, shrouded tyrannies.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The knitted green of this girl’s sweater<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is a badge releasing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A cool republic of desire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unrelated to earth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her famished opaque face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Feeds on sleek anticipations—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unconscious incongruity.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Color alone is real,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waving perpetually<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the graves of thought and emotion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the vaster shapes of color<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Small and involved broods of thought and emotion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are born to scorn their distant mothers.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ruffian dream recedes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over a span of twenty thousand years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And color, awake and supreme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Waits to be once more divided<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By another nightmare dream.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If men could see this they might kneel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon this sidewalk and observe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The importance of apple-peelings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Testing their spirals of red<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the thick, brown stream.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_INCURABLE_MYSTIC_ANSWERS_WESTERN_AMBITIONS" id="THE_INCURABLE_MYSTIC_ANSWERS_WESTERN_AMBITIONS"></a>THE INCURABLE MYSTIC ANSWERS WESTERN AMBITIONS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Western men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your life is a minor rhapsody<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For flute and violin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sounds, now shrill, now suave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You steal your hymns and frolics<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the surface dirt of realism<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the curves of sensuality.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your feeble mysticism<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strains at the task of lifting tables<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And placing naïve retorts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the mouths of spirits.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your erudition is the vain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gesture of your repentance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grown over-thin and complex.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Western men, you are beggars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devouring bits of guile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tossed from a violent mirage.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The contours of a rose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bribing the quiet madness of evening<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cunning promises of red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are more important than your sweating love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the rushing dreads of your market-places.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The contours of a rose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will still arrange their subtle dream<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When your clever schemes of mud<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Win the drifting pension of dust.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your charts and diagrams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are merely a ragamuffin’s initials<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cut into an ancient gateway<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That guards the invisible meaning of life.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PLATONIC_NARRATIVE" id="PLATONIC_NARRATIVE"></a>PLATONIC NARRATIVE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Tomato soup at four A. M.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We seemed to sit upon the floor<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, with a feathery discretion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We advised our bodies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make the floor a glistening fundamental<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flattened by the walk of centuries.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Continuing the advice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We told our bodies to arrange<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A variation on the floor<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And give the floor a living<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reason for existence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our bodies, with clandestine movements,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Accepted the advice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And became the essences of Plato,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Almost tempting our flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To renounce its weight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our lifted knees were actors<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Simulating treason to our souls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With their prominence of bone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They were interviewed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By elbows that held a light disbelief.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our backs against the cushions<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had disappeared, and we did not move<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For fear that all of us<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might rush away through the openings.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our heads were fiercely bent down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As though they felt an ecstasy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of shame at their crudity ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When we returned to the tomato soup<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was an insipid fluid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we drank it indifferently,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it is also possible<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That an unearthly laugh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Peered through the crevices of our eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Finding no need for sound.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PORTRAITS" id="PORTRAITS"></a>PORTRAITS</h2> - -<h3>I.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Stenographer</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Intellect,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You are an electrical conspiracy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between the advance guards of soul and mind.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thoughts and spiritual instincts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Profound and unfanatical,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sit plotting against the enmity<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That seeks to wall them in separate castles...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A thought and a spiritual instinct<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Link themselves for an instant<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the face of this stenographer.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unknown to her mind and speech<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A gleam of intellect contradicts her features,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she spies the jest of her relation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the droning man beside her.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This incredible news<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will be doubted by poets and scientists.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Waitress</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Musicians and carpenters<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meet upon your trays of food:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Aesthetics and the flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Play their little joke upon dogma,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Urged by the rhythm of your hands.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your rouged cheeks slip unnoticed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the sexless turmoil.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rituals are hastened<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lest they become self-conscious...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I stop you and remark:<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“The sylvan story of your hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is damaged by your rhinestone comb.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May I remove it?” Then you stare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fact that you have been<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Greeted by something other than a wink<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Almost causes you to think.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You walk away, holding an emotion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That skims the lips of many adjectives.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Confused, uncertain, scornful—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With none of them fused together.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>III.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Shop-Girl</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yellow roses in your black hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hold the significance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of stifled mystics defying Time.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yellow roses in your black hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can become to certain eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trivial details of emotion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yellow roses in your black hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Often embarrass passing philosophers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who suddenly realize<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they have been furtively snatching at color and light.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Shop-girl, in the midst of your frolic,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take this portrait without surprise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Portraits are merely pretexts.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IV.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Manicurist</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Maudlin, hurt, morose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tender, angry, remote,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whimsical, frigid, impatient—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Compel these adjectives to become<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Friendly to each other<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And let them stumble in unison<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath the muscular trouble of life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The careful Boss who sends them on<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Holds one eye of bitterness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And another of sentimentality,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Closing each one on different occasions.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The careful Boss may be your soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tired manicurist, amazing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fragrant barber-shop<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With words of valiant prose.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ferretti, the mildly dying barber,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loves his bald head with one finger<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whispers, “She’s crazy, I fire her tomorrow.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When customer ask her to eat with him<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She laugh and tell him she no care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To pay too much for indigestion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She’s crazy. I fire her tomorrow.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ferretti does not know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That souls are not entirely unconcerned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With straining for effects.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>V.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Housewife</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Seraphic and relaxed, you take<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Your novel with uncertain thumbs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As one who lingers over cake<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And dreads the thought of final crumbs.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Frown at my precious sorcery<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And label me an envious elf.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If human beings could agree<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their boredom might revenge itself.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O youthful housewife, weighing grains<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of joy upon your empty smile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The total of my bolder gains<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is but a more impressive guile.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Your serious child wins the alert<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And limpid art of playing tag,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While your emotions rest inert<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like dried fruit in a paper bag.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And yet I envy both of you<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And wish that I could also find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mildness of your fancied view,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where feelings dance and thoughts are kind.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VI.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They worship musical sound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Protecting the breast of emotion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their feelings pose as fortune-tellers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And angle for coins from credulous thoughts.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall we abandon this luxury<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of mild mist and wild raptures?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your face refrains from saying yes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But your closed eyes roundly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Reward the luminous sentence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Greece and Asia have exchanged<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Problems upon your face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the fine poise of your head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tries to catch their conversation.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Few people care to use<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thought as a musical instrument<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That brings its singing restraint to grief and joy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we, with straight arms, will descend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Daringly upon this situation.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The full-blown confusion of life<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will detest our intrusion.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Old Actor</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Any minor poet can claim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That his subject resembles music.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(“Her steps were notes of music.”<br /></span> -<span class="iq">“His presence was like a song.”)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You are a long-neglected<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Instrument from which the player,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With over-confident lips, blows only<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A jet of dust that falls upon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The damp chagrin of his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moist from the futile effort<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He asks his listeners to admire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imaginary notes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They clap their hands, and he must retire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the slow digesting of his lie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Old actor, you have finished reciting Hamlet;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your pennies are gathered; and you depart.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="NEGRO_CRIMINAL" id="NEGRO_CRIMINAL"></a>NEGRO CRIMINAL</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">From the pensive treachery of my cell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I can hear your mournful yell.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Centuries of pain are pressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into one unconscious jest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As your scream disrobes your soul.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The silence of your iron hole<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is hot and stolid, like a guest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Weary of seeing men undressed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the silence, I listen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because I dread the glisten<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a hidden humour that strains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the stumble of all pains.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brown and wildly clownish shape<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thrown into a cell for rape,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You contain the tortured laugh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a pilgrim-imbecile whose staff<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Taps against a massive comedy.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Melodrama burlesques itself with free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stony voice, and wears a row of masks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lure the joviality of tasks.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Melodrama, you, and I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We are merely tongues that try<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To ogle a protesting dream<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into whisper, laugh, and scream.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="SHORT_STORY_IN_SONNET_FORM" id="SHORT_STORY_IN_SONNET_FORM"></a>SHORT STORY IN SONNET FORM</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Loud chatter in a thousand minor lines<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was your religion, and your art was pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Disguised by phrases of verbose disdain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You married an old man who gave you wines<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lukewarm and pink, until your tipsy youth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grown weary of evading sensual lies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ran to idiot-Pierrot whose cries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Created that delusion known as truth.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ache of your sincerity betrayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His awkward falseness, and he turned away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grinning until your bullet found his head.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then people claimed that you had merely paid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Insanely for a tritely sordid play.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your lyric could not answer—it was dead.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="FEMININE_TALK" id="FEMININE_TALK"></a>FEMININE TALK</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>First Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Do you share the present dread<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of being sentimental?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The world has flung its boutonnière<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Into the mud, and steps upon it<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With elaborate gestures!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Second Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sentimentality<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is the servant-girl of certain men<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the wife of others.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She scarcely ever flirts<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With creative minds,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Striving also to become<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Graceful and indiscreet.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>First Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sappho and Aristotle<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Have wandered through the centuries,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dressed in an occasional novelty—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A little twist of outward form.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They have always been ashamed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To be caught in a friendly talk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Second Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">When emotion and the mind<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Engage in deliberate dialogue,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One hundred nightingales<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And intellectuals find a common ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And curse the meeting of their slaves!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>First Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The mind must only play<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With polished relics of emotion,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the heart must never lighten<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Burdens of the mind.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Second Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">I desire to be<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Irrelevant and voluble,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Leaving my terse disgust for a moment.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I have met an erudite poet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With a northern hardness<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Motionless beneath his youthful robes.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He shuns the quivering fluencies<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of emotion, and shifts his dominoes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within a room of tortured angles.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But away from this creative room<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He sells himself to the whims<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of his wife, a young virago<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With a calculating nose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beneath the flagrant pose<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of his double life<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Emotion and the mind<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Look disconsolately at each other.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>First Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Lyrical abandon<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And mental cautiousness<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Must not mingle to a magic<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Glowing, yet deliberate.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Second Woman</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Never spill your wine<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon a page of mathematics.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Drink it decently<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within the usual tavern.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_SWORD_CONVERSES_WITH_A_PHILOSOPHER" id="THE_SWORD_CONVERSES_WITH_A_PHILOSOPHER"></a>THE SWORD CONVERSES WITH A PHILOSOPHER</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Sword</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">The Hindoo raises his arms<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And holds them level with his shoulders<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till they become still and permanent, like horizons.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But I prefer to stumble<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Into abrupt harmonies<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That must ever be flung aside.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With one quick slash I cut<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lips of death upon an expressionless breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And a vermilion sincerity<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Pardons the sophistry of flesh.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">It is better to make<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And leave the moments of a poem<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than to erect an ingenious pedestal<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon which blindness solemnly squats.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Philosopher</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Men’s tongues are slow, and they have made you<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To avenge their hidden shame at this.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You give startling girdles to virgins,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Red beards to thieves,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">And writhing necklaces to children,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Because the tongues of men are slow<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And revel in your quicker rhythms.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An idiot whirls you around his head<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And persuades himself that he is swift.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Imagination drenches his eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he spreads himself flat on your blade.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Sword</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">All of your words are concentrated<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Into the glittering censure of my blade!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Philosopher</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Life wraps its layer of touch around one,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a haunting blanket<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Smothering the taunting lips of a child.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Curving their fingers around your hilt<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Men strive to purchase the triumph<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of an imagined escape.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I teach them plaintively to weave<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Schemes of consolation<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On the broad texture of their lives.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You tell them to slash the fabric,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Reaching into the black space underneath it.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You are not a symbol of cruelty.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An innocent impatience<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sharpens the comedy of your blade.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Sword</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Men have only two choices—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To worship idols or mimic fireflies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And I lend my strength to each choice,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Teaching them to abandon<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The harlequin raptures of words.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Philosopher</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">You bring them yearning turbulence,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And I, a quick-tongued refuge.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Silence will pardon both of us.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="CAPTAIN_SIMMONS" id="CAPTAIN_SIMMONS"></a>CAPTAIN SIMMONS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">An arbitrary architect<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Became his mind, and planned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cathedrals, mansions, and shops<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a room enclosed by hair.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so a crowded town<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Occupied the dwarfed miles in his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And along the boundary-line<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That separated thought from emotion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Darkly seething slums grew up.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Owing to the lack of space<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prevailing in mental slums,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some buildings had been forced<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the realm of emotion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within these structures half-breeds lived—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Creatures whose inconsequent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Color prevented them<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From being entirely logical,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And whose reeking impulses<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were deplorably snubbed by thought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Being from the slums of mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These hybrids loved the dirt of arguments<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Inherited from centuries of men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stopping now and then<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To order emotional brandy.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It is unnecessary<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tell that Captain Simmons was old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a body like the fading dream<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of an athlete, and a face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made womanly by age.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="MORE_ABOUT_CAPTAIN_SIMMONS" id="MORE_ABOUT_CAPTAIN_SIMMONS"></a>MORE ABOUT CAPTAIN SIMMONS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Captain Simmons’ legs<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were praying after much capering.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Legs can pray without kneeling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When they steal pity from city streets.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On Captain Simmons’ face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrinkled inhibitions were giving<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moth-eaten lace to that soft tolerance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where memory and dying desire sleep without dreams.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Captain Simmons’ black suit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fitted him loosely while his mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Became him tightly, and the reason<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flickered in his smile.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all of life he had hidden<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath a loose generosity<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In order to escape the fact<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That certain of his thoughts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were supplied with tights and slyness,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his smile was a lit candle held<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For a moment uncertainly over this situation.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If one mentioned that Captain Simmons<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was possessed by the plight of eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like pinched chicaneries of fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above a face of visual penuries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One would only hide his essential parts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath the futility of explanation.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="CAPTAIN_SIMMONS_WIFE" id="CAPTAIN_SIMMONS_WIFE"></a>CAPTAIN SIMMONS’ WIFE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">She moved in a calculating trot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Relinquishing hairsbreadths of her life<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With each step, and gathering<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Atoms of humour and melancholy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into one last excuse for existence.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is true that she was playing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Housewife to her thoughts and emotions.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her intangible household had attained<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A weak and exquisite indirectness,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she fiddled with its meager neatness;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Protected them as they stooped<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the knitting of remorse;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fed them platters of minced scandal<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mildly censured the relish with which they ate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Persuaded them that they could dream best<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When they were uncomfortable;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swept out bedrooms for fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the talkative candour of her dislikes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might falter in the presence of dust;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clinked the silver on side-boards<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In an effort to convince herself<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That she was still robustly mercenary.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Again, she scanned the spots<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On a bridal-gown and planned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As she had done for years<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To send it to an imaginary cleaner.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="NORTH_CLARK_STREET_CHICAGO" id="NORTH_CLARK_STREET_CHICAGO"></a>NORTH CLARK STREET, CHICAGO</h2> - -<h3>I.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Tame and ghastly coffins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Display their shamefaced grays and reds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the passive vividness of morning.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the base of these large coffins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men and women walk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like briskly servile automata.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some repentant toy-maker<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has given them a cunning pretense of life.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A waitress hurries to her work.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her yellow hair and face stained red<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blend into a garish mendicant<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who steals unreal composure from the morning.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behind her tramps a bloodless Jew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stench of endless denials<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has wrenched his youthful face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into a prophecy of middle age.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He does not see the lamely leaden<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shop-girl, where despair and apathy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fighting, produce the motion of her limbs.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She does not see this elderly laborer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon whose face an artist<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_038fp.jpg" width="300" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Lies smashed and gasping for breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he does not regard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This thread irresolutely falling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From a tapestry of memory:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This slender woman in black.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glittering indifference of morning<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Divides their faces.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Afternoon has fallen on this street,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like an imbecilic organ-grinder<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grinning over his discords.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dead men and women spin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their miracles of motion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the grayness of this street.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this old Jew’s shop<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A woman bargains over calico.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a ghostly naïveté<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She reprimands the price of her shroud.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this pawn-shop stands a man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Parting with his clarinet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He walks away, with dangling arms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a swindled Gabriel.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a lunchroom sits a woman<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose face is a tired sin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seeking comfort in religion.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A young girl near her is an angel<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Puzzled by streaks of mud upon her face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And asking questions of her vanity.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Outside, dead men and women<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are whipped on by the explosive magic<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of an old, resistless masquerade.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Street-cars, wagons, and motor-trucks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rattle their parodies on life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And over all the afternoon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twists, like an imbecilic organ-grinder<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Snickering over his discords.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>III.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Night has thrown his ecstasy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of staring, counterfeit eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the torrent of this street.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Men with faces quicker<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And more furtive than time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stand motionless in doorways.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Women stride down this street.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Many fingers have pulled their faces<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a haggard lack of expression.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They join the motionless men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the doorways and disappear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And over them the tame and ghastly coffins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Display their shamefaced grays and reds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the tangled vividness of night.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="LANDSCAPE" id="LANDSCAPE"></a>LANDSCAPE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The countless vagaries of maple leaves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Elastic humbleness of flowers and weeds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hill, a placid stoic to all creeds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They use an obvious language that deceives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The subtle theories of human ears.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their tongue is motion and they scorn the rhyme<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And meter made by men to soothe their fears.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Beneath the warm strength of each August hour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They spurn cohesion and the plans of thought,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With quick simplicity that seems confused<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because it signals mystic whims that tower<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above the thoughts and loves that men have caught:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the futile words that men have used.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="COUNTRY_GIRL" id="COUNTRY_GIRL"></a>COUNTRY GIRL</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Your face is stencilled with a pensiveness.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your face contains a minor lyric trapped<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By dainty ignorance, and tamely capped<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By hair as trimly lifeless as your dress.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You suffer from the drooling praise of old<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And youthful men, who strive to win a blind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And soothing admiration from your mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And do not try to make your thoughts unfold.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This comedy would fade into a host<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If it were not rewarded by the dead<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But unrelenting poet on your face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your eyes are heavy with his reckless ghost:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trouble of his hands is on your head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As you peer out into a clouded space.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="NONDESCRIPT_TYPIST" id="NONDESCRIPT_TYPIST"></a>NONDESCRIPT TYPIST</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Within an office whose exterior<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Resembles an ultra-conservative mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You battle with the avaricious words<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a meager, petrified man.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your face is brown stagnation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes astounded by a thrust<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of chattering wistfulness.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bravery is fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Effectively sneering at itself,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And you are forever wavering<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the edge of this condition.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet your obscurity<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is an important atom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the mysterious march of time.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="CONCERNING_EMOTIONS" id="CONCERNING_EMOTIONS"></a>CONCERNING EMOTIONS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And if I say that pain is but<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A circus barker whose loud cries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seek to reward a trivial show,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will you confess that I am wise?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">“Must it be emotional?” you asked,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After I had thrown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Words into a carnival-scope.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sobriety and merriment<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Borrowed the sixteenth century<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within your voice, and sought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The identity of sternness—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mental sternness pretending to ignore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The confetti thrown by emotion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a carnival unique.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Emotions can be prancing curves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fashioned by relaxing thoughts.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should I kiss you, Questioner,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The delicate anti-climax<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a mental caper<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might perish on crimson vapor!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tired of frenzies and satiations<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Emotions often wander to poets<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ask for more fantastic decisions<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For fire that glows but does not burn.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="METAPHYSICAL_ELIZABETH" id="METAPHYSICAL_ELIZABETH"></a>METAPHYSICAL ELIZABETH</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They gave you strait-jackets to bore you.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like an unwilling promise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your legs were tied together.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But people can only violate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their own conception of reality,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And your actual curves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Preserved their sculptural liberty.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leaving their semblance on your flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your lines sped inward till they gained<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The center where emotion changes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a speck of quivering clarity.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Within you phantoms of reality<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Danced with plausibilities of mind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seeking to be consumed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the oblivion which is understanding.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You feared that your return to motion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would mean a succession of disappointments—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tamely grazing arrows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Changed to wounds by the desiring heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take my hand and move.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only two statues can stride together<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a manner invisible<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save to certain unreasonable adjustments<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of eyesight and of hearing.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="DESCRIPTION_AND_EXHORTATION" id="DESCRIPTION_AND_EXHORTATION"></a>DESCRIPTION AND EXHORTATION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Truly, this age will be known<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As one of minute extremes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Courting an elderly shape<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a violent bar-room scene.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An Amazon made filthy by centuries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fuming pygmies, own the stage.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thin furies of emotion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Name every color in the rainbow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without its skillful assent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And little mental skeletons<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stamp with clumsy weirdness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On effigies of the heart.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pygmies often sneak<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the prancing Amazon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the ensuing love-scene produces<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Small memories of Walt Whitman.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This age is not metaphysical.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Followers of Dada,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Weary of electron-soliloquies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fleshly ecstasies with flat feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sit in the gallery<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And throw loose malice at the display,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Evading their motives with an eager creed.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Concentrate your aim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Followers of Dada.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="INEVITABLE" id="INEVITABLE"></a>INEVITABLE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The insurrection of a flea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Compared to driving tusks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of elephants, is just as strong.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stupidity need not be long.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The insurrection of a flea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Attains philosophy and spice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fleas salt their eating with a creed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That warms the monotone of greed.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The insurrection of a flea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will leave with tense insistence till<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The suburbs of eternity.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O small fanatic on a spree.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The flea is poet in a land<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That does not understand his lunge.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He makes his own immaculate laws<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And awaits forever threatening claws.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_NEGROES_WHO_TURNED_WHITE" id="THE_NEGROES_WHO_TURNED_WHITE"></a>THE NEGROES WHO TURNED WHITE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The souls of negroes, thrown into a shout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Roll their hallelujahs out<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the flashing blandness of the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sky does not divide their cries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into meanings foolish and wise:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the sky all men have but one cry.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still, amusement has often thrown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Separate shades upon the monotone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Playing with the sleep of firm beliefs.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amused, we give these negroes forms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Distinct and bounding under storms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of sounds that catapult their joys and griefs.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A negro with his bald despair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seduced by remnants of silver hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Converses with an old King known as God.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He longs to have his tortured stare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rewarded with a golden chair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While other negroes thump the sod<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With heavy echoes of his request.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a cold, castrated zest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He pleads for rest, and he is bold,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">While scientists and troubadours<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cling more closely to their floors.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2q">“How d’yah kno-ow, how d’yah kno-o-ow<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Dat the blood done sign mah na-a-ame?<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Yes it’s so-o-o, yes it’s so-o-o,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Jesus wrote it down in fla-a-ame.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The other negroes sing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gliding fear, and swing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The child-like joke of their arms to emotions<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That surge like an army searching for its eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But suddenly a quick surprise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tricks each negro’s face with fright—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their skins are gleaming pink and white.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White philosophers and scientists<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strike each other with dubious fists<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the negroes’ brains, while poets fight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like blistered urchins wrapped in gloom.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shrinking underneath the uproar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With its bursts of phantom gore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The negroes shriek against their doom.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bending celebration of knees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They crush against their leader’s pleas.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2q">“Lord Almighty, make us black!<br /></span> -<span class="i3">This strange noise strikes us on the back!<br /></span> -<span class="i3">We has had enough of whips!<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Calm this devil with your lips!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="EXPRESSIONS_ON_A_CHILDS_FACE" id="EXPRESSIONS_ON_A_CHILDS_FACE"></a>EXPRESSIONS ON A CHILD’S FACE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dawn?—no, the hunted transparency of dawn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curving from the white throat of a child<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shaken in the still cup of his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then a sudden dispersal of swerving light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Carrying away the defeated<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wisdom of a smile.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thought?—no, the persistent shudder<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of emotion that is almost thought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The invisible recklessness of perfume<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Enveloping the beginning of a question.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sadness?—no, the growth of a dim inclination<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To delve into the rancid importance of flesh:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then weeping, to wash away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ritual of disappointment.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="PSYCHIC_CLOWNS" id="PSYCHIC_CLOWNS"></a>PSYCHIC CLOWNS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3q"><i>First Clown</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">We gaze upon a negro shoveling coal.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His muscles fuse into a poem<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stifled and sinister,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Censuring the happy rhetoric of morning air.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some day he will pitch the stretched simplicity<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of his tent upon the contented ruins<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a civilization,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Playing with documents and bottles of perfume<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Found in deserted, broken corridors.<br /></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3q"><i>Second Clown</i><br /></span> - -<span class="i0">The barbarous comedy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lost in profuse confessions<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And often described as life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lends an attitude of conviction<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the mechanical retreat of time.<br /></span> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3q"><i>First Clown</i><br /></span> - -<span class="i0">Do you hear beneath the irregular strut<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this city an imperceptible groan?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Time is turning the jail-house key.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They build larger jails for time;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">He makes larger keys of blood-stained iron.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Endlessly he emerges<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From complicated delusions of freedom.<br /></span> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3q"><i>Second Clown</i><br /></span> - -<span class="i0">That desperately grotesque<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wanton known as imagination<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can plunge beyond both men and time.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imagination slips down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the last edges of thought and feeling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And teaches them to transcend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The forlorn bravado of swinging legs and arms.<br /></span> -</div> - -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3q"><i>First Clown</i><br /></span> - -<span class="i0">We are two psychic clowns<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Brandishing the poverty of words<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into insolent oddities of sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come, men are waiting to nail us<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the crucifix of their little logics!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="DEAR_MINNA" id="DEAR_MINNA"></a>DEAR MINNA</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Catastrophe in a bric-a-brac shop.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The proprietor lies murdered.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pieces of cups, jars, and vases<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have attained the disorderly freedom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So obnoxious to bankrupt fanatics.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once the cups, jars, and vases<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were symmetrical and empty,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And immersed in the task of holding nothing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now they have snatched a voice from fragments;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spell many an accidental sentence;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Renounce the hollow lie.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death, you take the stiffly obvious shapes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of objects and crack them with your fingers—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A shattered invitation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To curiosity and anticipation—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I am grateful to you for that.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My eyes grow weary scanning the living array.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each man takes his inch upon the shelves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And will not move, until your paw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Robs him of microscopical convictions.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dear Minna, read the newspapers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gloat with me over death’s industry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Banker, Freudian, Socialist,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knocked from the shelves and changed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To symbols that can lure conjecture.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is well that we are metaphysical.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death must not become<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A mere black frame surrounding<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The memorized reiterations.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death must remain an irresistible<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beckoning to reckless speculations<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And continue to offer an amorous arm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the recalcitrant antics of words.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="VILLAGE_CLERK" id="VILLAGE_CLERK"></a>VILLAGE CLERK</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Rabelais and Maeterlinck<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have subsided to one grin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon your sharply cumbersome face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coarseness and a psychic hope<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dominate your voice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As you prattle to women<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Purchasing sugar and salt.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then your face and voice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alter to a serious fraud<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eagerly learning the technique of deceptions,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As you answer this dryly emasculated<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grey-beard, discussing the tendencies in hogs.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When the night replenishes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your store of morbid desires,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You will try to piece together<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A cajoling violin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From your sweet-heart’s syllables,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fumbling with hot hands for the unseen strings.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2 style="margin-right:22%;"><a name="REALISM" id="REALISM"></a>REALISM</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Regard an American farm.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That jaded collaborator,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Daylight, has just arrived.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wavy signal of smoke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the wooden farm-house disappears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath the bluely ascetic lack of interest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Horses, pigs, and cows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Assemble their discontent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The result is a Chinese orchestra<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Devoid of discipline and cohesion,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With all of the players intoxicated.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The animals do not realize<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That their voices should portray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The farmer in the angular house;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hackneyed prose of his life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The expanding soul of his corn-fields.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turn from the absence of human wisdom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And see the lights in the farm-house.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dimly circumscribed and steady,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They symbolize future events.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The farm-hand walks to the barn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With an ox-like dragging of feet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Black shirt, and overalls<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose color has been removed by dirt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obscure the heavy knots of his body.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His cork-screw nose ascends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the eyes of an unperturbed pig.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love and hate to him<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are mouthfuls of coarse food hastily gulped<br /></span> -<span class="i0">During lulls in his muscular slavery.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath the slanting pungency<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the barn he vanishes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with meaningless sounds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He pays his meager tribute to life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then the farmer persuades his age<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To indulge in an unwilling stumble<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Across the yard.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His grey beard is the end of a rope<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That has gradually throttled his face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within him, avarice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is awkwardly practising the rhythms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of weak emotions benignly, belatedly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Preparing for celestial rewards.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the cluttered farm-yard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He stands, a figure of niggardly order.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Earth, the men who scrape at your flanks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can never stop to examine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thin line of speech that goes adventuring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where your brown hills bite the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="AMERICAN_VAUDEVILLE_SHOW" id="AMERICAN_VAUDEVILLE_SHOW"></a>AMERICAN VAUDEVILLE SHOW</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This vacuous, clattering spectacle<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Has collected the heart-beats of a nation.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Greed, like a gorged Machiavelli,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slumps down in the green plush seat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wonders whether it has not blundered,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While a sentimental song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a kindly infant,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Interferes with the clink of coins.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hatred, juvenile and deformed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Earns the smirking oblivion<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fat women mangling sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wrangling babble of ignorance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turns to silence underneath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The opium of innuendoes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Acrobats appear and seem<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be raping phantom lovers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No longer beautiful and fresh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But mechanically endured.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Part of the audience is also<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A battered stoic clasping worn-out mistresses.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clog-dancers enervate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thumping martyrs of their feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chorus-girls offer the lines of their bodies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With whining voices.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dreams are cheap, and green plush seats<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Appropriately, snugly hold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The expensive hallucinations.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - 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