Explore "Insanity" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ Like a vivid hyperbole, / The sun plunged into April's freshness, / And struck its sparkling madness / Against the barnlike dejection / Of this dark red insane asylum. / A softly clutching noise / Stumbled from the open windows. / Now and then obliquely reeling shrieks / Rose, as though from men / To whom death had assumed / An inexpressibly kindly face. / A man stood at one window, / His gaunt face trembling underneath / A feverish jauntiness. / A long white feather slanted back / Upon his almost shapeless hat, / Like an innocent evasion. / Hotly incessant, his voice / Methodically flogged the April air: / A voice that held the clashing bones / Of happiness and fear; / A voice in which emotion / Sharply ridiculed itself; / A monstrously vigorous voice / Mockingly tearing at life / With an unanswerable question.
/ Hollowed out by his howl, / I turned and saw an asylum guard. / His petulantly flabby face / Rolled into deathlike chips of eyes. / He bore the aimless confidence / Of one contentedly playing with other men's wings. / He walked away; the man above still shrieked. / I could not separate them.