The second typescript
[Page 13]
-13-
Looked at from this angle the problem of death and survival | ||
Ages slightly. For the solutions are millionfold, like waves of wild geese returning in spring. | ||
Scarcely we know where to turn to avoid suffering, I mean | ||
There are so many places. |
So, coachman-servile, or scullion-slatternly, but each place is taken. |
The lines that draw nearer together are said to "vanish." | ||
The point where they meet is their vanishing point. |
Spaces, as they recede, appear to become smaller. |
But another, more urgent question imposes itself--that of poverty. | ||
How to excuse it to oneself? The wetness and coldness? Dirt and grime? | ||
Uncomfortable, unsuitable lodgings, with a depressing view? | ||
The peeled geranium flowering in a rusted tomato can, | ||
Framed in a sickly ray of sunlight, a tragic chromo? |
A broken mirror nailed up over a chipped enamel basin, whose turgid waters | ||
Reflect the fly-specked calendar--with ecstatic Dutch girl clasping tulips-- | ||
On the far wall. Hanging from one nail, an old velvet hat with a tattered bit of veiling--last remnant of former finery. | ||
The bed well-made. The whole place scrupulously clean, but cold and damp. |
All this, wedged into a pyramidal ray of light, is my own invention. |
* * * |
Under a reddish-brown and greenish picture of excited beagles and calm huntsmen | ||
A mass[?] lot of squalling and retching arose from the messed-up crib. | ||
The newborn offspring was given the name of Charles. | ||
He grew up to become a successful business executive. |
But to return to our tomato can--those spared by the goats | ||
Can be made into a practical telephone, the two halves being connected by a length of wire. | ||
You can talk to your friend in the next room, or around corners. | ||
An American inventor made a fortune with just such a contraption. |
The branches tear at the sky-- |
The blight is on inert space | ||
Footage to dig under you so | ||
Things too tiny to be remembered in recorded history--the backfiring of a bus | ||
In a Paris street in 1932, and all the clumsy seductions and amateur paintings done | ||
Clamber to join in the awakening (the levee with its chocolate) | ||
To take a further role in my determination. These clown-shapes |