Burning in Water, Drowing in Flame Read Online Free PDF Page A

laugh
    they’ll all laugh;
    they are sometimes let
    outside for a little air
    but are chained to return
    by chains they would not
    break
    if they could;
    even outside, among
    free men
    they continue to laugh,
    they walk about
    with a hobbled and inane
    gait
    as if they’d lost their
    senses; outside
    they chew a little bread,
    haggle, sleep, count their pennies,
    gaze at the clock
    and return;
    sometimes in the confines
    they even grow serious
    a moment, they speak of
    Outside, of how horrible
    it must be
    to be
    shut Outside
    forever, never to be let
    back in;
    it’s warm as they work
    and they sweat a
    bit,
    but they work hard and
    well, they work so hard
    the nerves revolt
    and cause trembling,
    but often they are
    praised by those
    who have risen up
    out of them
    like stars,
    and now the stars
    watch
    watch too
    for those few
    who might attempt a
    slower pace or
    show disinterest
    or falsify an
    illness
    in order to gain
    rest (rest must be
    earned to gain strength
    for a more perfect
    job).
     
     
    sometimes one dies
    or goes mad
    and then from Outside
    a new one enters
    and is given
    opportunity.
     
     
    I have been there
    many years;
    at first I believed the work
    monotonous, even
    silly
    but now I see
    it all has meaning,
    and the workers
    without faces
    I can see are not really
    ugly, and that
    the heads without eyes—
    I know now that those eyes
    can see
    and are able to
    do the work.
    the women workers
    are often the best,
    adapting naturally,
    and some of these I
    made love to in our
    resting hours; at first
    they appeared to be
    like female apes
    but later
    with insight
    I realized
    that they were things
    as real and alive as
    myself.
     
     
    the other night
    an old worker
    grey and blind
    no longer useful
    was retired
    to the Outside .
     
     
    speech! speech!
    we demanded.
     
     
    it was
    hell, he said.
     
     
    we laughed
    all 4000 of us:
    he had kept his
    humor
    to the
    end.
     

beans with garlic
     
     
    this is important enough:
    to get your feelings down,
    it is better than shaving
    or cooking beans with garlic.
    it is the little we can do
    this small bravery of knowledge
    and there is of course
    madness and terror too
    in knowing
    that some part of you
    wound up like a clock
    can never be wound again
    once it stops.
    but now
    there’s a ticking under your shirt
    and you whirl the beans with a spoon,
    one love dead, one love departed
    another love…
    ah! as many loves as beans
    yes, count them now
    sad, sad
    your feelings boiling over flame,
    get this down.
     

mama
     
     
    here I am
        in the ground
              my mouth
             open
       and
      I can’t even say
          mama,
         and
    the dogs run by and stop and piss
    on my stone; I get it all
    except the sun
    and my suit is looking
                                    bad
    and yesterday
        the last of my left
                                        arm      gone
    very little left, all harp-like
    without music.
     
     
    at least a drunk
    in bed with a cigarette
    might cause 5 fire
                engines and
                33 men.
     
     
    I can’t
        do
        any
                      thing.
     
     
    but p.s.—Hector Richmond in the next
    tomb thinks only of Mozart and candy
    caterpillars.
      he is
      very bad
                          company.
     

machineguns towers & timeclocks
     
     
    I feel gypped by dunces
    as if reality were the property
    of little men
    with luck and a headstart,
    and I sit in the cold
    wondering about purple flowers
    along a fence
    while the rest of them
    stack gold
    and Cadillacs and
    ladyfriends,
    I wonder about palmleaves
    and gravestones
    and the preciousness of a
    cocoon-like sleep;
    to be a lizard would be
    bad enough
    to be scalding in the sun
    would be bad enough
    but not so bad
    as being built up to
    Man-size and Man-life
    and not wanting the
    game, not wanting
    machineguns and towers and
    timeclocks,
    not wanting a