Emanuel Carnevali

From “The Splendid Commonplace”

THROUGH the lowered awning’s chink

The sun enters my room with the glad fury

Of a victorious dagger wielded by an adventurous child.

I smoke:

On the blade of the golden dagger

The smoke of my cigarette

Writhes, struggles, seems to wail and protest,

Then escapes, runs away, hurriedly, out of the window.

It meets the sun—

This blue, dream-fed smoke meets the sun.

The sun has no dream—

Perhaps it is Truth itself,

So beautiful!

Then it’s wrong, very wrong,

To puff my dream in the radiant face of Truth?

Is it blasphemous, cowardly?

Is it to insult the Sun?