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Introducing Irony (Version 2)

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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">TURMOIL IN A MORGUE</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><div class="drop-cap2">NEGRO,</div> </div> <div class="verse">Chinaman,</div> <div class="verse">White servant-girl,</div> <div class="verse">Russian woman,</div> <div class="verse">Are learning how to be dead,</div> <div class="verse">Aided by the impersonal boredom</div> <div class="verse">Of a morgue at evening.</div> <div class="verse">The morgue divides its whole</div> <div class="verse">Of dead mens’ contacts into four</div> <div class="verse">Parts, and places one in each</div> <div class="verse">Of these four bodies waiting for the carts.</div> <div class="verse">The frankness of their decay</div> <div class="verse">Breaks into contradictory symbols</div> <div class="verse">And sits erect upon the wooden tables,</div> <div class="verse">Thus cancelling the validity of time.</div> <div class="verse">In a voice as passive as slime</div> <div class="verse">The negro speaks.</div> <div class="verse">“Killed a woman: ripped her skin.</div> <div class="verse">Saw her heart floating in a tumbler of gin.</div> <div class="verse">Had to drink her heart because it wouldn’t leave the gin.</div> <div class="verse">Because I wanted to reach all of her</div> <div class="verse">They ripped my flesh.</div> <div class="verse">They wanted to reach all of me</div> <div class="verse">And their excuse was better than mine.”</div> <div class="verse">Cowed baby painted black,</div> <div class="verse">The negro sits upon fundamentals</div> <div class="verse">And troubles them a little with his hands.</div> <div class="verse">The beautiful insanity</div> <div class="verse">Of his eyes rebukes</div> <div class="verse">The common void of his face.</div> <div class="verse">Then the Chinaman speaks</div> <div class="verse">In a voice whose tones are brass</div> <div class="verse">From which emotion has been extracted.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">“Loved a woman: she was white.</div> <div class="verse">Her man blew my brains out into the night.</div> <div class="verse">Hatred is afraid of color.</div> <div class="verse">Color is the holiday</div> <div class="verse">Given to moods of understanding:</div> <div class="verse">Hatred does not understand.</div> <div class="verse">When stillness ends the fever of ideas</div> <div class="verse">Hatred will be a scarcely remembered spark.”</div> <div class="verse">Manikin at peace</div> <div class="verse">With the matchless deceit of a planet,</div> <div class="verse">The Chinaman fashions his placid immensity.</div> <div class="verse">The Chinaman chides his insignificance</div> <div class="verse">With a more impressive rapture</div> <div class="verse">Than that of western midgets.</div> <div class="verse">His rapture provides an excellent light</div> <div class="verse">For the silhouette of the negro’s curse.</div> <div class="verse">Then the white servant-girl</div> <div class="verse">Speaks in a voice whose syllables</div> <div class="verse">Fall like dripping flower-juice and offal,</div> <div class="verse">Both producing a similar sound.</div> <div class="verse">“I made a neat rug for a man.</div> <div class="verse">He cleaned his feet on me and I liked</div> <div class="verse">The tired, scheming way in which he did it.</div> <div class="verse">When he finished he decided</div> <div class="verse">That he needed a smoother texture,</div> <div class="verse">And found another lady.</div> <div class="verse">I killed myself because I couldn’t rub out</div> <div class="verse">The cunning marks that he left behind.”</div> <div class="verse">Impulsive doll made of rubbish</div> <div class="verse">On which a spark descended and ended,</div> <div class="verse">The white servant-girl, without question or answer,</div> <div class="verse">Accepts the jest of a universe.</div> <div class="verse">Then the Russian woman</div> <div class="verse">Speaks in a voice that is heat</div> <div class="verse">Ill-at-ease upon its couch of sound.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">“I married a man because</div> <div class="verse">His lips tormented my melancholy</div> <div class="verse">And made it long to be meek,</div> <div class="verse">And because, when he walked to his office each morning,</div> <div class="verse">He thought himself a kindled devil</div> <div class="verse">Enduring the smaller figures around him.</div> <div class="verse">He abandoned me for German intrigue</div> <div class="verse">And I chased him in other men,</div> <div class="verse">Never quite designing him.</div> <div class="verse">Death, a better megalomaniac,</div> <div class="verse">Relieved me of the pursuit.”</div> <div class="verse">Symbol of earth delighted</div> <div class="verse">With the vibration of its nerves,</div> <div class="verse">The Russian woman sunders life</div> <div class="verse">Into amusing deities of emotion</div> <div class="verse">And bestows a hurried worship.</div> <div class="verse">Then the morgue, attended by a whim,</div> <div class="verse">Slays the intonations of their trance</div> <div class="verse">And slips these people back to life.</div> <div class="verse">The air is cut by transformation.</div> <div class="verse">The white servant-girl retreats to a corner</div> <div class="verse">With a shriek, while the negro advances,</div> <div class="verse">And the Russian woman</div> <div class="verse">Nervously objects to the Chinaman’s question.</div> <div class="verse">The morgue, weary housewife for speechless decay,</div> <div class="verse">Spends its helplessness in gay revenge:</div> <div class="verse">Revenge of earth upon four manikins</div> <div class="verse">Who straightened up on wooden tables</div> <div class="verse">And betrayed her.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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