Maxwell Bodenheim

1892 - 1954 / Mississippi / United States

Advice To A Street-Pavement

Lacerated grey has bitten
Into your shapeless humility.
Little episodes of roving
Strew their hieroglyphics on your muteness.
Life has given you heavy stains
Like an ointment growing stale.
Endless feet tap over you
With a maniac insistence.

O unresisting street-pavement,
Keep your passive insolence
At the dwarfs who scorn you with their feet.
Only one who lies upon his back
Can disregard the stars.
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