TOPICAL LYRICS
Birthday; just step a little closer
0 my friends, and examine this highly
Interesting, highly valued, highly
Civilized young fellow whose curly head
Was recently emptied permanently of all
Those highly captivating wise-cracks
Those little audacities all the girls used to
Love; 0 look here, friends,
His manly chest ain't human, no it ain't,
It's crawling just crawling with
Whatever it is that crawls all over a
Dead young fellow when he can't help
It; nope, the poor guy can't do a
Thing just as if he couldn't ever
Do anything and maybe that's a fact, buddy,
But it's a damn shame he has to spoil.
VIII
The sparrows chirping on the boulevards
And the velvet light on the lawns
In the
ol~
provinces.
Carriages covered in linen
And the horses' fetlocks twinkling,
The fine spokes glittering. Clop clop. Creak.
Then tenders of machines, valve readers, skilled
Oilers and handlers of waste, slow movmg
Among shining and whining lathes and cutters.
"Here was his hand and there his fingers
Lay right over there." Trainmen in mist
Softly waving their lights;
The dusty builders in the stencil of sunlight.
To free those prisoned, defeated in cities:
To make of their many hands one iron pressure:
To unchain and train that power:
Scholars have risen from the world's disorder,
Sleepless when the stars fade, silent
Keepers of history, their bodily will
Geared to the majestic transit of heaven;
Pliant as whips, at ease in multitudes,
Beloved and unloving, responsible.
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