Bleed, really, together. For ever the lost eagle
Or vulture I am-
Dealer or dogger of death. Strikes then lightning
Through my white ceiling,
But every affection has already died, and broken
Is every precious feeling.
With teeth of stars
In the watches of the night those huge gears wheeling
Grind up all power and all glory until
Meshed in the clock of years
Nothing remains of our spiritual pride save only
A despair of hands knocking
Like a lost idiot at the asylum of heaven
And a mocking echo.
Then the wild children who flew down the long hall of night
With tears and rain
Like fair haired lambs frightened in violent weather
Return again
Armed from the teeth of the dragon, howling out loud
For Justice and Vengeance,
While, overhead, smiling, blood drips from the jaws
Of the heavenly engines.
Daniel G. Hoffman
OLD BUG UP THERE
On Faneui! Hall there squats a copper
more-than-man-sized green grasshopper.
Impaled above the Farmers' Market,
snow-slow smoke and soot have darkened
him. His mandibles munch the seedless wind.
No hunger's his, no brass caresses;
