POEMS
THE CANDY-MAN'S ART IS THE
SWEETEST ART I KNOW
The candy-man's
art
is the sweetest
art
I know,
Unless the fireworks-man can master
him,
Whose dazed confections pepper the sky with a glow
Of starry sugar, coloring and cream
To make us gay with glee-but even so
The candy-man's
art
is the sweetest art I know
Whose riots of color, stacked on trays in the clean
Cathedral of
his
counter, bring in to worship
The housewife, the good husband; even the lean
Irreligious urchin proclaims that his religion
Is a wild surging of such colorful rain
As
sweetens the tiger and makes fierce the pigeon;
Or holds for us those lollipops like a rainbow
Hinting of all voluptuousness, and even
That nicer nothingness one also knew
Deep at the dug,
his
mother humming so
He thought (who could not think) all heaven had come,
Lovely in cellophane, into his well-scrubbed room.
But, "Heaven's my gum-drop, I'll have it all in a bag,"
The child may later pipe; then, hiding in words,
A metaphysical taffy comes to swell
The pink, decaying bridgework of his hours–
No gum-drops then! Nor will he stand an ounce
Of that glib confection he crunched on once.
Sing
carpe diem!
the candy-man must come
Himself at last to a narrow room;
