Explore "Candid Narrative" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. _A chorus-girl falls asleep and, in a dream, speaks to a former / lover. In her dream she holds the intelligence of a poet but still / clings to certain of the qualities and mannerisms of her wakeful / self._
/ Say, kid, I'm in a candid mood; / The kind of mood that silences / The babbling dampness of my character. / I'm feeling as improbable / As an overworked Grecian myth / Fainting amid the smells of a Ghetto. / Now, Hypocrisy / Always slinks along / Winking an opaque eye at reality. / But when he spies a fantasy / He feels disgraced and leaves in haste. / What's the use of telling a lie to a lie? / So, since I'm only a dream, / Listen to my candid scream. / You like to press a rouged cheek / Against your obscurity, / Like a third-rate poet / Pasting a sunset upon his emptiness. / Bashful mountebanks like you / Can seduce the eloquent delusion / Of time and give it a speechless limp.