and I
made dumb by old abuse
made no reply.
A word so used, so greasy with the using
crooned, trumpeted out, the lush
forerunner of the furtive pox
among the dregs
And by me
in far-off sordid grapples
– another self, but still the mouth’s the same mouth’s shame the same
And that alas O harrow and alas. But no help now: blind face it is.
Is that to be
the word
t’apply
to this deep unity?
On the left a half-paid, old, unsmiling whore
whose grin does not conceal a mind averse
And here, the one sole thing the sole one thing that gives to death
a terrible finality, a fear
of loss unmeasured: makes of it the sum
of all the bitter tearing wind of sorrow
man can feel.
The wheel
on which he breaks
quite breaks
Breaks.
Down. He is down.
Breaks quite down. Smashed now –
never and never and never and never again
this whole man now.
Do these two meet?