Explore "Highly Deliberate Poem" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ "Mother o' mi-i-ine, mother o' mi-i-ine, / Sweet as uh ro-ose in thuh spring-ti-i-ime" --
/ The man who bawls this song / Has the face of a spell-bound, hairless rat. / Entranced within a spotlight, / He borrows unconsciously / Another voice from despair. / The ordinary squeak of his life / Is paralyzed, and fear of death / Lends him a tenor voice / To supplicate the Catcher. / But the audience fails to understand / And makes flat sounds of glee / With hands. Death, quietly / Disgusted at this blind approval, / Takes away the spotlight. / Now safe, the rat presents / Jerks of gratitude and scampers off / To gnaw at his wife within their dressing-room. / That squeezed-in bag of piteous / Mythologies described as heart / Has opened in one thousand people / And received a vision / Of past solicitude for other bags.