Warped... gland-dry... With spine askew And body shrunken into half its space... Well-used as some cracked paving-stone... Bearing on his grimed and pitted front A stamp... as of innumerable feet.
Where to-day would a dainty buyer Imbibe your scented juice, Pale ruin with a heart of fire; Drain your succulence with her lips, Grown sapless from much use... Make minister of her desire...
Wind, just arisen - (Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars, Or niche of cliff under the eagles?) You of living things, So gay and tender and full of play -...
The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine, It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies, And purple, like the blood of elderberries. Surely it is a strong wine - juice distilled of the fierce iron....
The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, Spraying light like a fountain. Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers And on her arms, great as thighs, Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat....
Small towns Crawling out of their green shirts... Tubercular towns Coughing a little in the dawn... And the church... There is always a church With its natty spire And the vestibule -...
Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness.... Lidless windows Glazed with a flashy luster From some little pert cafe chirping up like a sparrow. And down among iron guts Piled silver...
That was a great night we spied upon See-sawing home, Singing a hot sweet song to the super-stars Shuffling off behind the smoke-haze... Fog-horns sentimentalizing on the river......
Wind rising in the alleys My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls. You are full of unspent dreams.... You are laden with beginnings.......