VII.
Old Actor
Any minor poet can claim
That his subject resembles music.
(“Her steps were notes of music.”
“His presence was like a song.”)
You are a long-neglected
Instrument from which the player,
With over-confident lips, blows only
A jet of dust that falls upon
The damp chagrin of his face.
Moist from the futile effort
He asks his listeners to admire
Imaginary notes.
They clap their hands, and he must retire
To the slow digesting of his lie.
Old actor, you have finished reciting Hamlet;
Your pennies are gathered; and you depart.
NEGRO CRIMINAL
From the pensive treachery of my cell
I can hear your mournful yell.
Centuries of pain are pressed
Into one unconscious jest
As your scream disrobes your soul.
The silence of your iron hole
Is hot and stolid, like a guest
Weary of seeing men undressed.
Like the silence, I listen
Because I dread the glisten
Of a hidden humour that strains
Under the stumble of all pains.
Brown and wildly clownish shape
Thrown into a cell for rape,
You contain the tortured laugh
Of a pilgrim-imbecile whose staff
Taps against a massive comedy.
Melodrama burlesques itself with free
And stony voice, and wears a row of masks
To lure the joviality of tasks.
Melodrama, you, and I,
We are merely tongues that try
To ogle a protesting dream
Into whisper, laugh, and scream.
SHORT STORY IN SONNET FORM
Loud chatter in a thousand minor lines
Was your religion, and your art was pain
Disguised by phrases of verbose disdain.
You married an old man who gave you wines
Lukewarm and pink, until your tipsy youth,
Grown weary of evading sensual lies,
Ran to idiot-Pierrot whose cries
Created that delusion known as truth.
The ache of your sincerity betrayed
His awkward falseness, and he turned away,
Grinning until your bullet found his head.
Then people claimed that you had merely paid
Insanely for a tritely sordid play.
Your lyric could not answer—it was dead.
FEMININE TALK
First Woman
Do you share the present dread
Of being sentimental?
The world has flung its boutonnière
Into the mud, and steps upon it
With elaborate gestures!