Classic Poem

Come, my songs, distorted, spoken against,
Come, let us pity those who have one-dimensional minds,
Let us pity those who move smugly
in two or even three dimensions,
Bound to a relative mortmain.
Ma si morisse!
Take thought of the dull, the hopelessly-enmeshed;
The young enslaved by the old,
The old embittered by the young.

Go, with a clashing of many echoes and accents,
Go to Helicon — on the Hudson.
Perform your naked rites, your cephalic dances;
Shout your intolerant cat-calls from the bus-tops,
(We have kindred in common, Walt Whitman)
Parade your tag-ends and insolences,
Cry them on State Street:
Ch'e be'a. ...

Take no thought of being presentable.
Lest they say you grow shabby,
I shall find fresh raiment for you
out of time and spaciousness;
A shirt out of Provence, green slippers from Cathay,
Assorted mantles, slightly worse for wear, from Montparnasse,
And fillets, somewhat dusty, out of Ithaca.
Who shall say you have become
A slave to your technique
like Chloris, who would flirt
Even with her own shadow?
Who proclaims this?
B-a-a-a-a-amen.