Стихи и эссе

A blizzard. A bare room.
Thoughts of the past.
He forgot to wind his watch.

* * *

The gale howled over lava. Suddenly,
In the storm's eye,
A dark speck,

Perseus in an air-taxi,
Come to snatch
Shivering Andromeda

Out of the wilderness
And bring her back
To hot baths, cocktails, habits.

* * *

Once more
A child's dream verified
The magical light beyond Hekla.

* * *

Fortunate island,
Where all men are equal
But not vulgar-not yet.

THE PRESUMPTUOUS

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was a daring as they thought him,
But these peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel with the broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory:
And stuck hallway to settle in some cave
With desert lions in domesticity
Or turned aside to be absurdly brave
And met the ogre and were turned on stone.

Короткие стихи 1929-1931

1

Pick a quarrel, go to war,
Leave the hero in the bar;
Hunt the lion, climb the peak:
No one guesses you are weak.

2

The friends of the born nurse
Are always getting worse.

3

When he is well
She gives him hell;
But she's a brick
When he is sick.

4