Valley View Manor
80,000 cars a day thunder, pound
wrest in their furiousness
from the beaten tar a pallid miasma
of weary dust that rises
swirls with noxious fumes
mingles with the clouds
to fall and settle on the houses' roofs
where babies are awakening
to yell with lust in the houses of life.
Amid these tabernacles of flowering domesticity
hard by the freeway
under the dusted roof of Valley View Manor
whose blond bricks are shaken
by the adjacent stampede for lucre,
for advancement, for survival
everybody hanging on,
there dwell those souls flesh shocked;
preparing to shuck the weary flesh,
they turn from death's threshold
to gaze at long life's kaleidoscope.
A thin hand upraised by white curtains!
They to whom some sentience remains
gather daily about their special table
and glean what levity they might
from memory, shared misery,
and caring still shining in dull,
encroaching night.
They fence with life's horrors
with the foils of humor
in the same manner as people everywhere
all times, from the playground on.
And all around their tiny island, Lord
the fog of death floats above
the sea of oblivion, obscuring it.
The return is imminent.
The unravelling is at hand.
Are these then the councils of the wise,
where youth hears not the words of age?
Sequestered, cloistered,
they lose their psychic edge.
Treated like helpless children,
helpless children they become.
Their keepers, heavy-lidded, legs hall-weary
deny them ice cream.
80,000 cars a day!
May there be a just man in one of them!
A thin hand upraised by white curtains. . .
80,000 cars a day thunder, pound
wrest in their furiousness
from the beaten tar a pallid miasma
of weary dust that rises
swirls with noxious fumes
mingles with the clouds
to fall and settle on the houses' roofs
where babies are awakening
to yell with lust in the houses of life.
Amid these tabernacles of flowering domesticity
hard by the freeway
under the dusted roof of Valley View Manor
whose blond bricks are shaken
by the adjacent stampede for lucre,
for advancement, for survival
everybody hanging on,
there dwell those souls flesh shocked;
preparing to shuck the weary flesh,
they turn from death's threshold
to gaze at long life's kaleidoscope.
A thin hand upraised by white curtains!
They to whom some sentience remains
gather daily about their special table
and glean what levity they might
from memory, shared misery,
and caring still shining in dull,
encroaching night.
They fence with life's horrors
with the foils of humor
in the same manner as people everywhere
all times, from the playground on.
And all around their tiny island, Lord
the fog of death floats above
the sea of oblivion, obscuring it.
The return is imminent.
The unravelling is at hand.
Are these then the councils of the wise,
where youth hears not the words of age?
Sequestered, cloistered,
they lose their psychic edge.
Treated like helpless children,
helpless children they become.
Their keepers, heavy-lidded, legs hall-weary
deny them ice cream.
80,000 cars a day!
May there be a just man in one of them!
A thin hand upraised by white curtains. . .