Lines at Night

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.