MY LANGUAGE ALONE
If these words can tease you they will : I can see
through your shirt, your loose-leaf is showing, your
hand's an enigma. All these things are set here openly
to baffle you and confuse. I do not want your mind
to go lax, or fade away, or drift. It is my language
alone you will heed and listen to.
-
Young men already tired of details and duty : they
will read poetry under duress and not understand a
thing. Not knowing magic, all they can see are words
which lead them to others. Instruction manuals.
Detective novels. Sleaze. I have none of that.
My words are not infirm.
-
Down-Neck Newark, and the working girls of the Port
in Elizabethtown. I knew them all as places and
beings. They've torn it all down and walked away.
I have words, here with me, left to say.
They girls are all gone now and
the great ports are dead.
My language alone
bears repeating.
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