En-Route

A scent of myrrh which roams in the twilight. Plazas red and desolate sink in fume. Bazaars circle and a golden ray flows In old shops queerly and confused. In the dishwater decay glows; and the wind Evokes dully the agony of burnt gardens. The possessed pursue golden dreams. By windows dryads rest slender and dulcet. The dream-addicted wander pined over by a wish. Workers surge shimmering through a gate. Steel towers glow upward at the edge of the sky. O fairy tale barred gray in factories! In the sinisterness an old man trips dollish And a jingling sound of money laughs lasciviously. A halo falls on that little girl Who waits before the coffee house, soft and white. O golden brilliance which she wakes in panes! Sun-filled noise roars distantly and ecstatically. A crooked writer smiles as if crazy To the horizon which is frightened green by an uproar. State coaches of crystal move on bridges, Fruit barrows, hearse black and sallow, The canal swarms with bright steamboats, Concerts sound. Green domes drizzle. Public baths flicker in magic of light, Execrated streets which one tears down. A center of epidemics chaotically circles in ether, A light from forests breaks through ruby dust. Enchanted an opera house shines in the gray. From alleys masks flood unforeseen, And somewhere a fire still blazes furiously. A small moth dances in the wind-roar. Lodgings threaten full of squalor and stench. Viola colors and chords move Along cellar holes before the hungry. A sweet child sits dead on a bank.