Finalities

Pretend that night is grandiose, That stars win graves in every ditch; Pretend that moon-light is verbose And affable, like some grand-mère, And men will say that your despair Seduces luminous conceits, Or call you an anaemic fool Who stuffs himself with curdled sweets. Thus sentenced to obscurity, You can find more turbulent lips And spaciously retreat from men Immersed in pedestals and whips. Amusedly, you can say that stars Are wizened jests on every ditch; That moon-light is a trick that jars Your mind intent on other minds. Having agreed upon your station, Men will no longer heed your words, And with a galloping elation You can contradict yourself in peace. II The wary perturbations of convinced And secretly disdainful men are mild And deftly tepid to the ears of one Who entertains a careless, ungloved child. Above the sprightly idleness of plates Men sit and feign industrious respect, With eye-brows often slightly ill at ease- Cats in an argument are more erect. At last the tactful lustres of farewells Are traded: each man strolls off and forgets The other - not a frill is disarranged. The tension dexterously avoids regrets. Two men have unveiled carved finalities And made apologies for the event, With voices well-acquainted with a task Devoid of nakedness and ornament. And each man might have murmured, 'Yes, I know What you will say and what I shall repay,' And each man might have watched the other man Smile helplessly into his mutton-pie. III This farcical clock is copying A wood-chopper with nimble poise, While Time, with still and fluid strides, Perplexedly listens to the noise. The room that holds this joke is filled With the relaxed complacencies Of poets hiding from themselves With measured trivialities. But one among them walks about And watches with embarrassed eyes. The others do not speak to him: His nudeness is a tight disguise. This fool is anxious to display Interrogations of his mind To poets who at work and play Are isolated from their kind. Reluctantly he finds his room, Sits on the floor, with legs tucked in, And grins up at another clock Aloofly measuring its din. IV When you are tired of ogling moltenly, Your undertones explosively confess. A shop-girl coughing over her cigarette Expresses the burlesque of your distress. Take your cocaine. It leaves a blistering stain, But phantom diamonds are immune from greed. You pluck them from the buttons of your vest, Wildly apologising for your need. Take more. Redress the thinness of your neck With diamonds; entertain them with your breast; Cajole them on the floor with fingertips That cannot pause, dipped in a demon's zest. If you had not relented to a man Who meddled with your face and stole your clothes, Your shrill creative pleasures might be still Incarcerated in the usual pose. Hysteria shot its fist against your face One day, and left the blood-spot of your mouth, But when the morning strikes you there will be More than hysteria in your answering shout. V Laughter is a skeleton's applause: Grief sells increase to sterility: Happiness protects its subtle flaws. These three significances make The part of you that men can see, As you recline upon this bed, Your hand defending one bare knee, Your shoulders trapped upon the quilt. But under the warm sophistry That turns your flesh, another form Abstractly bellicose and free Attacks the answer of your blood. Freedom is the lowest note Of slavery, and slavery The lowest freedom- you can feel The charm of your servility. True, you were once a chamber-maid Who won a thief and spoke of grief, And now your limbs have numbly strayed. Are these not harmless travesties? VI Snobs have pockets into which They crowd too many trinkets. You feel this, talking to the rich And lightly bulging mountebank. Untie the knots that close your bag And tempt him with a creed or need. Be as loquacious as a hag Who loves the details of her wares. There is a relish when you speak To one who cannot understand: You celebrate upon a peak And prod his helpless effigy. This is an unimportant game To men evading holidays, But introspection becomes tame Unless it compliments itself. The lightly bulging mountebank Is but an interval in which You take your garments off and thank The privacy that he bestows. VII Like other men you fly from adjectives. The plain terseness that lives in verbs and nouns Creates a panorama where you know That men are not a cloud of romping clowns. You greet the wideness of eternal curves Where beauty, death and silence give their height To those rare men who do not play with thought. But this fruit-peddler decorates his fright And polishes his peaches and his grapes Insanely. If his mercenary hopes Were bolder he would be a nimble poet. Slight in her bridal gown, his mind elopes With adjectives that find her incomplete: Your mind is hard and massively parades Across the earth with Homer and Villon. Since each of you with common sense evades Monotony, I join you and refuse To call you dwarf or giant. Let the fools Who criticise you bind you with these names And separate your dead bones with their rules! VIII Dead men sit down beside the telephones Within your brain and carefully relate Decisions and discretions of the past, Convinced that they will not deteriorate. But you have not their certainty: you try A question now and then that cautiously Assaults their whispered indolence until Their sharp words once more force you to agree. Then you insist that certain living men Whose tones are half-discreet may be allowed To greet their masters through the telephones, Provided that their words are not too loud. The new men imperceptibly entice Their elders, and a compromise is made, Both sides discovering that two or three Excluded men must be correctly flayed. And so the matter ends; conservative And radical revise their family-tree, While you report this happening with relief To liberals and victorious cups of tea.