Judge not that ye be not judged, Wylie, He said.
Then shall I sit
like a Buchmanite on the john
waiting for guidance?
And there shall be laughter in heaven
They omit that chapter.
Anger is their meat:
Gabriel's pinfeathers, torn out by handfuls.
Pluck yourself a quill, pal.
Make yourself a pen from a seraphim.
Remind them they should enjoy it.
Nature, that's all, simply telling us to fall
In love.
And that's why Chinks do it—
Japs do it—
I got out of the tub, scattering water, and turned the radio loud.
Let me communicate again in the idiom of man—
my conceit has suddenly tired me out.
I lay
forlornly in the water, the water browned off by rust
in the
Astolat's pipes, the waters of life, but not much left.
Sadness encompassed me.
The sadness of little children dying by merely growing up
of mature men turning childish again
of American trees
of the disinherited
the stood-up
the disappointed
the deserted
the uncomprehended
of the walking wounded
I hate to see
that evening sun go down
The love songs of the world are sad.
The old English ballads quaintly drone—murder and rue.
Gypsy violins have wet the eyes of European centuries.
Italians shake their opera houses with love's grief.
Don Juan dies young—and Romeo grows old.
The Hindu on his fetid riverbank throbs to the guillotine moon.
The damsel in Xanadu may be different—it doesn't go on to say.