Finalities
I
The wary perturbations of convinced
And secretly disdainful men are mild
And deftly tepid to the ears of one
Who entertains a care-free, ungloved child.
Above the sprightly idleness of plates
Men sit and feign industrious respect,
With eyebrows often slightly ill at ease —
Cats in an argument are more erect.
At last the tactful lustres of farewells
Are traded: each man strolls off and forgets
The other — not a frill is disarranged.
The tension cleverly avoids regrets.
Two men have unveiled carved finalities
And made apologies for the event,
With voices well-acquainted with a task
Devoid of nakedness and ornament.
And each man might have murmured, " Yes, I know
What you will say and what I shall reply. "
And each man might have watched the other man
Smile helplessly into his mutton-pie.
II
This farcial clock is copying
A wood-chopper with steady poise,
While Time, with silent, fluid strides,
Perplexedly listens to the noise.
The room that holds this joke is filled
With the relaxed complacencies
Of writers hiding from themselves
With measured trivialities.
But one among them walks about
And watches with embarrassed eyes.
The others do not speak to him:
His nudeness is a tight disguise.
This fool is anxious to display
Interrogations of his mind
To authors who at work and play
Are isolated from their kind.
Reluctantly he finds his room,
Sits on the floor, with legs tucked in,
And grins up at another clock
Aloofly measuring its din.
III
When you are tired of ogling moltenly,
Your undertones explosively confess.
A shop-girl coughing over her cigarette
Expresses the burlesque of your distress.
Take your cocaine. It leaves a blistering stain,
But phantom diamonds are immune from greed.
You pluck them from the buttons of your vest,
Wildly apologizing for your need.
Take more. Redress the thinnesss of your neck
With diamonds; entertain them with your breast;
Cajole them on the floor with fingertips
That cannot stop, dipped in a demon's zest.
If you had not relented to a man
Who meddled with your face and stole your clothes,
Your shrill, creative pleasures might be still
Incarcerated in the usual pose.
Hysteria shot its fist against your face
One day, and left the blood-spot of your mouth,
But when the morning strikes you there will be
More than hysteria in your answering shout.
IV
Snobs have pockets into which
They crowd too many trinkets.
You feel this, talking to the rich
And lightly bulging mountebank.
Untie the knots that close your bag
And tempt him with a creed or need.
Be as loquacious as a hag
Who loves the details of her wares.
There is a relish when you speak
To one who cannot understand:
You celebrate upon a peak
And prod his helpless effigy.
This is an unimportant game
To men evading holidays,
But introspection becomes tame
Unless it compliments itself.
The lightly bulging mountebank
Is but an interval in which
You take your garments off and thank
The privacy that he bestows.
V
Like other men you fly from adjectives.
The plain terseness that lives in verbs and nouns
Creates a panorama where you know
That men are not a band of slaves and clowns.
You greet the wildness of eternal curves
Where beauty, hope, and silence give their height
To tall, keen men who do not play with thought.
But this fruit-peddler decorates his sight
And polishes his peaches and his grapes
Insanely, if his mercenary hopes
Could perish, he would be a nimble poet.
Sheer in her bridal-gown, his mind elopes
With adjectives that find her incomplete:
Your mind is hard and massively parades
Across the earth with Homer and Villon.
Since each of you with common sense evades
Monotony, I join you and refuse
To call you dwarf or giant. Let the fools
Who criticize you bind you with these names
And separate your dead bones with their rules!
VI
Dead men sit down beside the telephones
Within your brain and carefully relate
Decisions and discretions of the past,
Convinced that they will not deteriorate.
But you have not their certainty: you try
A question now and then that cautiously
Assaults their low-voiced indolence until
Their sharp words once more force you to agree.
Then you insist that certain living men,
Whose tones are half-discreet, should be allowed
To greet their masters through the telephones,
With modest words that fail to shove or crowd.
The new men imperceptibly entice
Their elders, and a compromise is made,
Both sides discovering that two or three
Tall radicals must be correctly flayed.
And so the matter ends: conservative
And liberal revise their family tree,
While you report this happening with relief
To cronies and victorious cups of tea.
The wary perturbations of convinced
And secretly disdainful men are mild
And deftly tepid to the ears of one
Who entertains a care-free, ungloved child.
Above the sprightly idleness of plates
Men sit and feign industrious respect,
With eyebrows often slightly ill at ease —
Cats in an argument are more erect.
At last the tactful lustres of farewells
Are traded: each man strolls off and forgets
The other — not a frill is disarranged.
The tension cleverly avoids regrets.
Two men have unveiled carved finalities
And made apologies for the event,
With voices well-acquainted with a task
Devoid of nakedness and ornament.
And each man might have murmured, " Yes, I know
What you will say and what I shall reply. "
And each man might have watched the other man
Smile helplessly into his mutton-pie.
II
This farcial clock is copying
A wood-chopper with steady poise,
While Time, with silent, fluid strides,
Perplexedly listens to the noise.
The room that holds this joke is filled
With the relaxed complacencies
Of writers hiding from themselves
With measured trivialities.
But one among them walks about
And watches with embarrassed eyes.
The others do not speak to him:
His nudeness is a tight disguise.
This fool is anxious to display
Interrogations of his mind
To authors who at work and play
Are isolated from their kind.
Reluctantly he finds his room,
Sits on the floor, with legs tucked in,
And grins up at another clock
Aloofly measuring its din.
III
When you are tired of ogling moltenly,
Your undertones explosively confess.
A shop-girl coughing over her cigarette
Expresses the burlesque of your distress.
Take your cocaine. It leaves a blistering stain,
But phantom diamonds are immune from greed.
You pluck them from the buttons of your vest,
Wildly apologizing for your need.
Take more. Redress the thinnesss of your neck
With diamonds; entertain them with your breast;
Cajole them on the floor with fingertips
That cannot stop, dipped in a demon's zest.
If you had not relented to a man
Who meddled with your face and stole your clothes,
Your shrill, creative pleasures might be still
Incarcerated in the usual pose.
Hysteria shot its fist against your face
One day, and left the blood-spot of your mouth,
But when the morning strikes you there will be
More than hysteria in your answering shout.
IV
Snobs have pockets into which
They crowd too many trinkets.
You feel this, talking to the rich
And lightly bulging mountebank.
Untie the knots that close your bag
And tempt him with a creed or need.
Be as loquacious as a hag
Who loves the details of her wares.
There is a relish when you speak
To one who cannot understand:
You celebrate upon a peak
And prod his helpless effigy.
This is an unimportant game
To men evading holidays,
But introspection becomes tame
Unless it compliments itself.
The lightly bulging mountebank
Is but an interval in which
You take your garments off and thank
The privacy that he bestows.
V
Like other men you fly from adjectives.
The plain terseness that lives in verbs and nouns
Creates a panorama where you know
That men are not a band of slaves and clowns.
You greet the wildness of eternal curves
Where beauty, hope, and silence give their height
To tall, keen men who do not play with thought.
But this fruit-peddler decorates his sight
And polishes his peaches and his grapes
Insanely, if his mercenary hopes
Could perish, he would be a nimble poet.
Sheer in her bridal-gown, his mind elopes
With adjectives that find her incomplete:
Your mind is hard and massively parades
Across the earth with Homer and Villon.
Since each of you with common sense evades
Monotony, I join you and refuse
To call you dwarf or giant. Let the fools
Who criticize you bind you with these names
And separate your dead bones with their rules!
VI
Dead men sit down beside the telephones
Within your brain and carefully relate
Decisions and discretions of the past,
Convinced that they will not deteriorate.
But you have not their certainty: you try
A question now and then that cautiously
Assaults their low-voiced indolence until
Their sharp words once more force you to agree.
Then you insist that certain living men,
Whose tones are half-discreet, should be allowed
To greet their masters through the telephones,
With modest words that fail to shove or crowd.
The new men imperceptibly entice
Their elders, and a compromise is made,
Both sides discovering that two or three
Tall radicals must be correctly flayed.
And so the matter ends: conservative
And liberal revise their family tree,
While you report this happening with relief
To cronies and victorious cups of tea.
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