We aren't serious when we're seventeen. —One fine evening, to hell with beer and lemonade, Noisy cafés with their shining lamps! We walk under the green linden trees of the park
The lindens smell good in the good June evenings! At times the air is so scented that we close our eyes.
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can’t stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don’t feel good don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind. America when will you be angelic?
A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her death tonight when she was swept through an emergency door that sud- denly sprang open ... The body ... was found ... three hours after the accident. —New York Times
the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat) and there was an ant circling the coffee cup; I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer, and outside I gave an old bum who looked about the way I felt, I gave him a quarter, and then I went up to see the old man strong as steel girders, fit for bombers and blondes,
As I sit looking out of a window of the building I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses of a new metal. I look down into the street and see people, each walking with an inner peace, And envy them—they are so far away from me! Not one of them has to worry about getting out this manual on schedule. And, as my way is, I begin to dream, resting my elbows on the desk and leaning out of the window a little, Of dim Guadalajara! City of rose-colored flowers! City I wanted most to see, and most did not see, in Mexico!
It may be through some foreign grace, And unfamiliar charm of face; It may be that across the foam Which bore her from her childhood’s home, By some strange spell, my Katie brought, Along with English creeds and thought— Entangled in her golden hair— Some English sunshine, warmth, and air!
My love looks like a girl to-night, But she is old. The plaits that lie along her pillow Are not gold, But threaded with filigree silver, And uncanny cold.
She looks like a young maiden, since her brow Is smooth and fair, Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed. She sleeps a rare Still winsome sleep, so still, and so composed.
Nay, but she sleeps like a bride, and dreams her dreams Of perfect things.
The plane tilts in to Nashville, coming over the green lights like a toy train skipping past the signals on a track. The city is livid with lights, as if the weight of all the people shooting down her arteries had inflamed them.
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