The Things
The house in Broad Street, red brick, with nine rooms
the weedgrown graveyard with its rows of tombs
the jail from which imprisoned faces grinned
at stiff palmettos flashing in the wind
the engine-house, with engines, and a tank
in which young alligators swam and stank,
the bell-tower, of red iron, where the bell
gonged of the fires in a tone from hell
magnolia trees with whitehot torch of bud
the yellow river between banks of mud
the tall striped lighthouse like a barber’s pole
snake in the bog and locust in the hole
worn cigarette cards, of white battleships,
or flags, or chorus girls with scarlet lips,
jackstones of copper, peach tree in the yard
splashing ripe peaches on an earth baked hard
children beneath the arc-light in a romp
with Run sheep Run, and rice-birds in the swamp,
the organ-grinder’s monkey, dancing bears,
okras in baskets, Psyche on the stairs—
and then the north star nearer, and the snow
silent between the now and long ago
time like a train that roared from place to place
new crowds, new faces, for a single face
no longer then the chinaberry tree
nor the dark mockingbird to sing his glee
nor prawns nor catfish; icicles instead
and Indian-pipes, and cider in the shed
arbutus under pinewoods in the spring
and death remembered as a tropic thing
with picture postcard angels to upraise it
and trumpet vines and hummingbirds to phrase it
then wisdom come, and Shakspere’s voice far off,
to be or not, upon the teacher’s cough,
the latent heat of melting ice, the brief
hypotenuse from ecstasy to grief
amo amas, and then the cras amet,
the new-found eyes no slumber could forget,
Vivien, the affliction of the senses,
and conjugation of historic tenses
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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