All of your words are concentrated
Into the glittering censure of my blade!
Philosopher
Life wraps its layer of touch around one,
Like a haunting blanket
Smothering the taunting lips of a child.
Curving their fingers around your hilt
Men strive to purchase the triumph
Of an imagined escape.
I teach them plaintively to weave
Schemes of consolation
On the broad texture of their lives.
You tell them to slash the fabric,
Reaching into the black space underneath it.
You are not a symbol of cruelty.
An innocent impatience
Sharpens the comedy of your blade.
Sword
Men have only two choices—
To worship idols or mimic fireflies,
And I lend my strength to each choice,
Teaching them to abandon
The harlequin raptures of words.
Philosopher
You bring them yearning turbulence,
And I, a quick-tongued refuge.
Silence will pardon both of us.
CAPTAIN SIMMONS
An arbitrary architect
Became his mind, and planned
Cathedrals, mansions, and shops
In a room enclosed by hair.
And so a crowded town
Occupied the dwarfed miles in his head,
And along the boundary-line
That separated thought from emotion
Darkly seething slums grew up.
Owing to the lack of space
Prevailing in mental slums,
Some buildings had been forced
Into the realm of emotion.
Within these structures half-breeds lived—
Creatures whose inconsequent
Color prevented them
From being entirely logical,
And whose reeking impulses
Were deplorably snubbed by thought.
Being from the slums of mind
These hybrids loved the dirt of arguments
Inherited from centuries of men,
Stopping now and then
To order emotional brandy.
It is unnecessary
To tell that Captain Simmons was old,
With a body like the fading dream
Of an athlete, and a face
Made womanly by age.