THE empty trams sing a familiar song
As plaintive as those leaves that once were green
And cling to asphalt, floating else among
The sharp white-pink of quick acetylene.
Like rich saliva sprung from hectic flow’rs
They spray the night with echoing ideas—
Some lose themselves in fickle slanting hours
And some evaporate in pallid fears.
The souls of men have fossilized, grown cold
In this sublimely artificial day,
A criminal’s revolver-crack they hold
Some new device to animate their play!
The lift drops breathless down
And stairs in armies rise.
Then vertigo, the clown
Has caught us in disguise.