Lines at Night

Oscar Williams

Here in the midnight in the desert of a pause
The lamp's light threatens to be gay forever,
Unblinking joy rinsing the permanent air
Long after the hands that woke it sleep in distance;
I see the bookcase standing up, rich like a tiger
Long after the authors have staggered into time.

The very paint upon my walls is an extension
Of people who have somewhere somehow planned,
Persisted in a nonsense till it reaches here
And heaps invisible implications at my senses;
The newspaper lies on the couch, blackly headlined
With chronic drama, fallen columns of type,
With here and there a picture, recipes, maps,
The price of sugar, a corrupt thoroughness of detail
Triggered in case I grow curious late at night.

Tam served by an obsequious civilization
They say is rotting (O lively senility! )
Breathing its great care carefully drained of love;-
I am impressed. The presences of these things
Like blown-out candles beleaguer a self involved
And truth on its half-wings beats about in the room.