1914-18 (Sea Warfare) They bear, in place of classic names, Letters and numbers on their skin. They play their grisly blindfold games In little boxes made of tin.
Trade, Trade versus Art, Brain, Brain versus Heart; Oh, the earthiness of these hard-hearted times, When clinking dollars, and jingling dimes, Drown all the finer music of the soul.
Life as an Octopus with but this creed, That all the world was made to serve his greed; Trade has spread out his mighty myriad claw,
‘’Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.’ -Falstaff ‘The night cometh, when no man can work.’
What though the beauty I love and serve be cheap, Ought you to take me for a beast or fool? All things a man could wish are in her keep; For her I turn swashbuckler in love’s school. When folk drop in, I take my pot and stool
Calmly we walk through this April’s day, Metropolitan poetry here and there, In the park sit pauper and rentier, The screaming children, the motor-car Fugitive about us, running away, Between the worker and the millionaire Number provides all distances, It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
I saw the hand of Rasputin cast in bronze and used as an oversized paperweight on someone’s desk. The authentic hand. Smooth as Italian leather. It was molded from plaster before he was killed. Bought at an auction in Europe. She was a collector. She knew the value of everything.
I have had to learn the simplest things last. Which made for difficulties. Even at sea I was slow, to get the hand out, or to cross a wet deck. The sea was not, finally, my trade. But even my trade, at it, I stood estranged from that which was most familiar. Was delayed, and not content with the man’s argument
All my life I was face to face with her, at meal-times, by the fire, even in the ultimate intimacies of the bed. You could have asked, then, for information about her? There was a room
As I reach to close each book lying open on my desk, it leaps up to snap at my fingers. My legs won’t hold me, I must sit down. My fingers pain me where the thick leaves snapped together at my touch. All my life
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