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From “America—1919”
O BURNING fire, | |
| Streaking the midnight, | |
| Parching the silence. | |
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| O the flames that are arrows, | |
| Shaken in a golden quiver, | 5 |
| The flames…. | |
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| O the flames that are sudden ripples | |
| In an imprisoned river, | |
| The flames…. | |
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| O the flames that are screaming children | 10 |
| Danced in a slippery lap … | |
| The flames…. | |
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| O the wide-striding shadow of the flames, | |
| The dark and stately smoke | |
| That needs heaven | 15 |
| For a floor to die upon. | |
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| O burning Fire, | |
| Tearing the face of the midnight, | |
| Hissing into the ear of silence. | |
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| O red mouth | 20 |
| And yellow teeth | |
| Of Fire. | |
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| I have seen you eat up trees and houses, | |
| And fatten | |
| Till your obese shadow covered the sky. | 25 |
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| But men are your delicacy, | |
| Men whose flesh is flavored with the blood of God. | |
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| You eat them with a hungry joy, | |
| With flames flung upward, | |
| As though with arrows | 30 |
| To spit the souls. | |
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| How you pant, | |
| When you steal into a house, | |
| And search | |
| For a man. | 35 |
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| We can yell louder than you— | |
| Our shriek is leaner and longer. | |
| We call for the touch of you to prickle our flesh, | |
| Like insidious lewd fingers. | |
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| When the night grows over the houses | 40 |
| With broad black leaves, | |
| When silence shuts, | |
| And sounds are like grits | |
| In a shell, | |
| We come to you. | 45 |
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| O snarling Fire! | |
| Oh, curse, grovelling on the ground, | |
| Where the sky hurls you! | |
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| Oh, we stand close around— | |
| You, you are the god whose touch is death, | 50 |
| Who piteously asks for deaths. | |
| Oh! oh! to embrace you— | |
| To become Fire! | |
| Always him whom we destroy | |
| Death makes a god. | 55 |
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| Our faces gleam— | |
| We are cheeks of wet coral, | |
| And our sweat is as hard as diamonds. | |
| Our shouts spurt, | |
| And our smiles | 60 |
| Are like nooses, that have caught our joy. | |
| And we watch your feast, | |
| O red mouth | |
| With yellow teeth…. | |
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| The skin puckers up from the flesh— | 65 |
| How your breath grows heavy! | |
| The blood drops into your tongue. | |
| The hiss is a snap of teeth— | |
| Pain beats like a heart. | |
| Pain is the heart, | 70 |
| And the blood of pain flows swiftly … | |
| Swiftly…. | |
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| O Fire, grow dark! | |
| Call the shadows to pick your teeth— | |
| Lie back and rest! | 75 |
| Your shadow in the distance grows numb. | |
| We are exhausted with too much joy. | |
| The keenness of our pleasure has grown dull. | |
| We are like lovers, | |
| Nodding at last within the marriage bed, | 80 |
| Our drained eyes seeking the swelling breast of the night. | |
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| Heal for us the darkness and the silence. | |
| Now we can talk of our pleasures— | |
| Talk is like licking the lips…. | |
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| Better than goading animals | 85 |
| Into crouched fear | |
| Or strangled pain, | |
| Better than beating with sticks, | |
| Or prodding where pain breaks quickly, | |
| Better than tearing at girl’s flesh, | 90 |
| And letting the fingers suck | |
| At the bleeding maidenhood, | |
| Better than all the terrible lusts!— | |
| O green laughter of Herodias, | |
| O leper-white feet of Astarte, | 95 |
| O self-embracing totem-poles!— | |
| Better than all the terrible lusts | |
| Is to give a man | |
| To fire. | |
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