528 Readings

Heimweh Funicular [for Louis Zukofsky]

It was not
the socialism

we dreamed of:
principled but allowing

for private
bourgeois niceties,

rebuilding a rare
Hispano-Suiza,

ejecting a joke
against the state,

staging an exhibition
above a hosiery

shop, amassing
polite glass

sculptures or time
in the presence

of another’s
musical giftedness,

avoiding the over
presence of the proletarian,

acceptance of a pleasant
under-investment

in the political. These
were the orchestral

aspects of life
to which the citizen

devoted her most
painstaking labor,

though
the public

would scarcely
hear them.
Posted 05/08/12
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