Composition on Thomas Hardy
Thunder in a distant suburb Where the lights could barely reach, An old man imagining the roots of his teeth, Reciting some verse from 1924 About an engine and a new loneliness Under electric wires Up and down the gravel lane. A glare coming from the mind and the machine Riding each other in that early hell time And ever since The mad dogs just beginning to breathe And know themselves in mirrors deep in Europe. The old man writes his verse With a weapon in his hand though he cannot feel it While thousands clamor for attention pressed Upon the continental gates. He wept for his wife And in the stones of her sleep He wanted the world to start again.