NEW YEAR'S EVE
On m'analyse,
the key to secrets. Kinsey
Shortly will tell us sharply back
Habits we stuttered. How revive to join
(Great evils grieve beneath : eye Caesar's coin)
And lure a while more home
The vivid wanderers, uneasy with our shame?
Priests of the infinite! ah, not for long.
The dove whispers, and diminishes
Up the blue leagues. And no doubt we heard wrong–
Wax of our lives collects
&
dulls; but was
What we heard hurried as we memorized,
Or brightened, or adjusted? Undisguised
We pray our tongues
&
fingers
Record the strange word that blows suddenly and lingers.
Imagine a patience in the works of love
Luck sometimes visits. Ages we have sighed,
And cleave more sternly to a music of
Even this sore word "genocide."
Each to his own! Clockless
&
thankless dream
And labor makers, being what we seem.
Soon, soon enough we tum
Our tools in; brownshirt Time chiefly our works will burn.
· I remember: white fine flour everywhere whirled ·
Ceaselessly, wheels rolled, a slow thunder boomed,
And there were snowy men in the mill-world
With sparkling eyes, light hair uncombed,
And one of them was humming an old song,
Sack upon sack grew portly, until strong
Arms moved them on, by pairs,
And then the bell clanged and they ran like hares.
Scotch in his oxter, my Retarded One
Blows in before the midnight; freezing slush
Stamps off, off. Worst of years! ... no matter, begone;
Your slash and spells (in the sudden hush)
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