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