He deliberately borrowed whiskey To wipe away the lessons of older people Lest they intrude their sterility Upon his plotting exuberance. He placed his hands on women, Gently, boldly, as one Experimenting with a piano. He stole money, begged on street-corners, And answered people with an actual knife Merely to give his thoughts and emotions A changing reason for existence. Moderation seemed to him A figure half asleep and half awake And mutilating the truth of each condition. At twenty-four his flesh became tired, And to amuse the weariness His hands wrote poetry. He had done this before, But only as a gleeful reprimand To the speed of his limbs. Now he wrote with the motives of one Whose flesh is passing into less visible manners. At times he returned to more concrete motions, To befriend the handmaiden of his flesh, But gradually he longed For the complete secrecy of written creation, Enjoying the novelty of a hiding-place. In 1962 He died with a grin at the fact That literature and art in America Were still presenting a mildewed, decorous mien. CANDID NARRATIVE I _A chorus-girl falls asleep and, in a dream, speaks to a former lover. In her dream she holds the intelligence of a poet but still clings to certain of the qualities and mannerisms of her wakeful self._ Say, kid, I’m in a candid mood; The kind of mood that silences The babbling dampness of my character. I’m feeling as improbable As an overworked Grecian myth Fainting amid the smells of a Ghetto. Now, Hypocrisy Always slinks along Winking an opaque eye at reality. But when he spies a fantasy He feels disgraced and leaves in haste. What’s the use of telling a lie to a lie? So, since I’m only a dream, Listen to my candid scream. You like to press a rouged cheek Against your obscurity, Like a third-rate poet Pasting a sunset upon his emptiness. Bashful mountebanks like you Can seduce the eloquent delusion Of time and give it a speechless limp. The insincere trickle of your words Was neither silence nor sound But falteringly tempted both, Like a tiny fountain unnoticed At the feet of two large coquettes The intricate laziness Of your dimpled face Received a petulantly naked Ghost of thought, and seized it without desire. Again it held the furbished effigies Of sensuality And tried to give them life From the weariness of my face. Yet I could have endured you But for the fact that your moustache Scraped across my lips Like a clumsy imitation of passion. Trivial insults have tumbled down The pillared complacency of empires Just as the thrust of your lips Tripped my mercenary balance. My lover now has the face of a dog, With each corner of his lips Pointing to a different Heaven, Yet his greed and melancholy Sometimes fondle each other Upon the pressures of his mouth, And the monotony of his kiss