Collecte Works (15 page)

Brought the enemy down

as his descendents the bombs

blew up Somerset House—

staircase at least

where records go down

to Shakespeare who never ceased.

Nothing nourishing,

common dealtout food;

no better reading

than keeps us destitute.

The number of Britons killed

by German bombs equals

the number of lakes in Wisconsin.

But more German corpses

in Stalingrad's ruins

than its stones.

Old Hamilton hailed the man from the grocery store:

What's today, Friday? Thursday! Oh,

nothing till tomorrow.

Motor cars

             like china

sometimes chink each other.

Will the speeding sugar bowl

            of taffy color

stop to eat people?

Allied Convoy
Reaches Russia

The ship that saved us—Uncle Joe!

Guns a quarter-mile long!

Red Comrades start their tanks in the hold,

climb in on the dock and are gone.

Depression years

My daughters left home

I was job-certified

to rake leaves

                              in New Madrid.

Now they tell me my girls

should support me again

and they're not out of debt

            from the last time they did.

Coopered at Fish Creek,

farmed at Egg Harbor,

teamed on the ice from Green Bay to Death's Door,

kept hotel till it burned,

fished and returned

to the Creek, then started for more.

Tennessee, Black Hills,

now my farm at Lost Lake,

and that'll be the end of J.E. Thorp.

A working man appeared in the street

in soldiers suit, no work, no peace.

What'r you doing in that dress,

a policeman said, where's the fight?

And after they took him for a ride

in the ambulance, they made arrest

for failure to molest.

Woman with Umbrella

Lonely woman, not prompted

by freshness from the sky

to run with friends and laugh it off,

arrives unsparkling but dry—

she's felt the prongs of her own advance

thru the crowded street,

knows that lonely

she is dangerous to meet.

Automobile Accident

Not finding where the flowers were

he seized a tree.

…

Airplane or star?—so bright!

Star. I saw it last night.

Look, the woods, the sky, our home.

It's going to rain and if we're wise

we'll go in the wood and get us home

some chunks to keep us warm.

And while we're cutting trees it rains

and we are wise to go home

to keep from getting stiff and great.