POEMS
Hung like a murderer with stretched-out neck,
Prepared for dissection, absorption, use,
Subject to putrefactive air,
In gaunt symmetry lies the wonder fish;
The trip from the egg to the waterfall,
Leaping lively or lying sunned,
The spawning, the schooling, the quick increase,
Are value and profit and capital.
No natural course is dissatisfied,
No function corrupted, there is no waste.
Use has been served up with vinegar,
The matter discussed with great dispatch.
In the ribbed lucent shallows is the window clear;
And the eyes' connection established there
All harmony, because all enmity
Has logically come to stay;
Cements by its close attractive gaze;
For man and fish find purest pleasure
In their prostituting mutual sight.
Lenore G. Marshall
AS THOUGH FROM LOVE
Out of the matrix
Of those lies
Light pierced as though
They had been verities.
At last 0 at last
Darkness grew so blind
That the heart broke:
Found egress through the mind.
Then from barren room
And bleak door
Creeping from bitter place
Sorrows turned servitor
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