  UPON sharp floods of noise there glide The red-brick houses, float, collide With aspidestras, trains on steel That lead us not to what we feel. Hot glassy lights fill up the gloom As water an aquarium,— All mirror-bright; beneath these seen, Our faces coloured by their sheen, Seem objects under water, bent By each bright-hued advertisement Whose words are stamped upon our skin As though the heat had burnt them in. The jolting of the train that made All objects coloured bars of shade, Projects them sideways till they split Splinters from eyeballs as they flit. Down endless tubes of throats we squeeze Our words, lymphatic paint to please Our sense of neatness, neutralize The overtint and oversize. I think it true that Heaven should be A narrow train for you and me, Where we perpetually must haunt The moving oblique restaurant And feed on foods of other minds Behind the hot and dusty blinds. |
|
