Karl Shapiro Green Poems
- 1. A Garden In Chicago
In the mid-city, under an oiled sky,
I lay in a garden of such dusky green
It seemed the dregs of the imagination.
Hedged round by elegant spears of iron fence
... - 2. The Conscientious Objector
The gates clanged and they walked you into jail
More tense than felons but relieved to find
The hostile world shut out, the flags that dripped
From every motherâ??s windowpane, obscene
... - 3. Conscription Camp
Your landscape sickens with a dry disease
Even in May, Virginia, and your sweet pines
Like Frenchmen runted in a hundred wars
Are of a childâ??s height in these battlefields.
... - 4. The Intellectual
What should the wars do with these jigging fools?
The man behind the book may not be man,
... - 5. The Fly
O hideous little bat, the size of snot,
With polyhedral eye and shabby clothes,
To populate the stinking cat you walk
The promontory of the dead manâ??s nose,
...
