wires

for corn and women: a million white men came and

put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers

to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline

And taught the wayward soul to yearn.

It was as if a harp with wires

Was traversed by the breath I drew;

As many men are poets in their youth,

But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong

Even through all change the indomitable song;

Tracks ribbon the streets, and beneath the streets

Wires for voices, fire, thwart the plebiscites,

And choke the counsels and symposiacs

And there's the harp on which great fingers play

Of gods who touch the wires, dreaming infinite things;

And there's a soul that wanders out when called

Some day this bust will lie amid old metals

Old copper boilers, wires, faucets, kettles.

Some day it will be melted up and molded

But there’s work to do and things to conquer—

Oh, yes! the wires that screen the bait.

At last you get in—but you hear a step:

With a clatter of wheels and bells

And a humming of wires overhead.

They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines