In the Madness of Age

She

In the drapery of shadow I forgive

How wretchedly the noon awaits my wrinkled exposé

And how the window dressers must enhance

Their waxen girlies;

On six foot beaches endlessly they play,

The motor driven spray

Beguiles my shop-worn folly into trance.

And from the great gray dirty world

My pearly summer swims before my eyes.

In the drapery of shadow I forgive

How my wax beauty ran and came uncurled;

Like strange birds my headless follies rise

From out the glass case, bathed in paradise.

He

Behold me now, I am the husk of grief,

Do you know all the night Iam a lute?

The air of evening frets upon my bones.

Awake, it cries, awake, to the mute

Gape of nothing; hear the mellow tones

Of rushing air? I am the hanging thief

Wed to the tree and all night this strange shoot

Swings its unnatural branch over the live root.

Awake, it cries, awake; it is a young

Air freshened with young grasses, and the dung

Smell of freshborn animals along

The river marshes. Where are the years among

Those years with you, when I was strong

And leaped with your leaps and sang in my own tongue?