Explore "Poem to a Policeman" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ Marionnette-fanatic, / Your active club within this riot / Was once the passive integrity / Of a branch upon a tree. / Now without success / It tries to beat out fire / Writhing in human skulls. / The pause of nature, transformed / Survival of every memory and defeat, / Separates to bits of action / Aiding an inexplicable fever. / The hands of centuries press / These bits into another / Pause before corruption. / O pernicious circle, / I will not believe / That your parsimonious farce / Reiterates itself through space. / The souls of men achieve / An accidental dream / That seems important merely / Because the figures which it holds / Have invented small and almost / Non-existent divisions of time.
/ Yet, trapped within these months and years, / I turn to you, marionnette-fanatic. / You at least can bring / Diversion to my chained / Impatience as I wait for death. / How wildly you protect / The sluggish minds of men! / A calculating laziness of thought / Has created you to guard its doors, / While other men require / An outward expression of peace / Beneath which the inner struggle / Can revel in privacy. / And so, with buttons of brass / And blue uniform that lend / An incongruous dignity / To your task, you defend / The myriads of insincerities / That drape a mutilated need. / And yet, unconsciously, / And at rare times you save / The face of beauty from an old / Insult in the fists of men. / Yes, you are not entirely / Without extenuation, / Marionnette-fanatic.