Revolutionary Days

All the little notions walk the streets

in scarlet dresses, dressed to kill,

while big and lumbering fresh thoughts

take off their shirts,

their muscles flexing in the midday sun.

The best of guesses strut their stuff,

in alleyways, in sad cafés,

while intimations slink, as ever,

in the cellar dark,

in chapels where the choir never sings;

their books are passed beneath the tables,

and there’s someone singing out of tune

on some blue stage, in smoky light.

The worn-out theories of the old regime

are running scared now

over desert roads, on mountain passes,

hoping they will reach the border safely,

well before the posse

with their rifle-bright ideas

finds them in their flight and picks them off.