The town is old and very steep A place of bells and cloisters and grey towers, And black-clad people walking in their sleep— A nun, a priest, a woman taking flowers To her new grave; and watched from end to end By the great Church above, through the still hours: But in the morning and the early dark The children wake to dart from doors and call
Last night I dreamed I ran through the streets of New York Looking for help for you, Nicanor. But my few friends who are rich or influential were temporarily absent from their penthouses or hotel suites. They had gone to the opera, or flown for the weekend to Bermuda. At last I found one or two of them at home, preparing for social engagements, absently smiling, as they tried on gown after gown
He tells me in Bangkok he’s robbed Because he’s white; in London because he’s black; In Barcelona, Jew; in Paris, Arab: Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back.
He holds up seven thick little fingers To show me he’s rated seventh in the world, And there’s no passion in his voice, no anger In the flat brown eyes flecked with blood.
She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
Only a dad, with a tired face, Coming home from the daily race, Bringing little of gold or fame, To show how well he has played the game, But glad in his heart that his own rejoice To see him come, and to hear his voice.
Only a dad, with a brood of four, One of ten million men or more. Plodding along in the daily strife, Bearing the whips and the scorns of life, With never a whimper of pain or hate, For the sake of those who at home await.
The unicorn is an easy prey: its horn in the maiden’s lap is an obvious twist, a tamed figure—like the hawk that once roamed free, but sits now, fat and hooded, squawking on the hunter’s wrist. It’s easy to catch what no longer captures the mind, long since woven in, a faded tapestry on a crumbling wall
She has been condemned to death by hanging. A man may escape this death by becoming the hangman, a woman by marrying the hangman. But at the present time there is no hangman; thus there is no escape. There is only a death, indefinitely postponed. This is not fantasy, it is history.
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To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live without mirrors is to live without the self. She is living selflessly, she finds a hole in the stone wall and on the other side of the wall, a voice. The voice comes through darkness and has no face. This voice becomes her mirror.
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