Explore "Finalities" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. Pretend that night is grandiose, / That stars win graves in every ditch; / Pretend that moonlight is verbose / And affable, like some grande-mère, / And men will say that your despair / Seduces luminous conceits, / Or call you an anaemic fool / Who stuffs himself with curdled sweets. / Thus sentenced to obscurity, / You can find more turbulent lips / And spaciously retreat from men / Immersed in pedestals and whips. / Amusedly, you can say that stars / Are wizened jests on every ditch; / That moonlight is a trick that jars / Your mind intent on other minds. / Having agreed upon your station, / Men will no longer heed your words, / And with a galloping elation / You can contradict yourself in peace.
/ II. The wary perturbations of convinced / And secretly disdainful men are mild / And deftly tepid to the ears of one / Who entertains a careless, ungloved child. / Above the sprightly idleness of plates / Men sit and feign industrious respect, / With eye-brows often slightly ill at ease -- / Cats in an argument are more erect. / At last the tactful lustres of farewells / Are traded: each man strolls off and forgets / The other -- not a frill is disarranged. / The tension dexterously avoids regrets. / Two men have unveiled carved finalities / And made apologies for the event, / With voices well-acquainted with a task / Devoid of nakedness and ornament. / And each man might have murmured, "Yes, I know / What you will say and what I shall reply," / And each man might have watched the other man / Smile helplessly into his mutton-pie.