IN A HOTEL LOBBY
36
These are the well-to-do, the managers of the nation,
Trains from the North and West and South,
ships from the East, planes through the sky
from capitals and emporiums have rushed them here.
Porters with ironic eyes and automatic, sirring lips
escort them here to sit, lined deep in plush.
Beside them stir their imperious women.
Their hair threatens like lions' manes;
their eyes rove like killing eagles;
their lips look cut from stone;
their hands take lightly like the hands
of Aztec priests who timed fresh human hearts
beating on their palms.
Strange beside their cruel beauty are the mutilated men.
Bushmen chiefs with knives and spikes and stains
have not more marred themselves, than have these chiefs
of the capitalist jungle, gouged and torn
with pointed worries and with hooking scorn.
Here anxiety has almost split a cheek; and here
suspicion digs trenches i·ound the eyes;
here arrogance has filed the lips like blades;
and here indulgence pulled them out like tongues;
and greed has sliced and envy burned
and graft has squeezed and flattery turned.
And do they know their doom? Out of the jungle. to be driven?
The jungle of Capital is being cleared;
in Russia first and soon to thrive the world.
In the morning, following their razor's traces
do they see the omens on their faces?
lsiDOR.
SCHNEIDER
