Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : The Scrub-Woman

I

Time has placed his careful insult
Upon your body.
In other ages Time gave rags
To hags without riches, but now he brings
Cotton, calico, and muslin--
Tokens of his admiration
For broken backs.
Neat nonsense, stamped with checks and stripes,
Fondles the deeply marked sneer
That Time has dropped upon you.
While Time, in one of his well-debated moods
That men call an age, is attending to his manners,
I shall scan the invisible banners
Of meaning that unfurl when you move.

II

When you open your mouths
I see a well, and strangled chastity
At the bottom--not chastity
Of the flesh, but lucid purity
Of the mind choked by a design
Of filth that has slowly turned cold,
Like a sewer intruding
Upon a small, dead face.
This is not repulsive.
Only things alive, with gaudy hollows,
Can repulse, but your death holds
A haggard candour that gently thrusts its way
Into the unimportance of facts.
You are not old: you were never young.
Life caressed your senses
With a heavy sterility,
And you thanked him with the remnant
Of thought that he left behind--
His usual moment of absentminded kindness.
When the muscles of your arm
Punish the brush that rubs upon wood
I see a rollicking mockery--
Rhythm in starved pursuit
Of petrified desire.
When the palms of your hands
Stay flat in dirty water
I can observe your emotions
Welcome refuse as perfume,
Intent upon a last ghastly deception.
When you grunt and touch your hair
I perceive your exhaustion
Reaching for a bit of pity
And carefully rearranging it.

Lift up your pails and go home;
Take the false tenderness of rest;
Drop your clothes, disordered, on the floor.
Vindictive simplicity.

Submited by

Sábado, Mayo 14, 2011 - 12:58

Poesia Consagrada :

Sin votos aún

Maxwell Bodenheim

Imagen de Maxwell Bodenheim
Desconectado
Título: Membro
Last seen: Hace 12 años 48 semanas
Integró: 04/27/2011
Posts:
Points: 345

Add comment

Inicie sesión para enviar comentarios

other contents of Maxwell Bodenheim

Tema Título Respuestas Lecturas Último envíoordenar por icono Idioma
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Twilight Pushes Down Your Eyes 0 843 05/14/2011 - 13:20 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Turmoil in a Morgue 0 676 05/14/2011 - 13:19 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Track-Workers 0 658 05/14/2011 - 13:18 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/Dedicada Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To Orrick Johns 0 1.560 05/14/2011 - 13:17 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/Dedicada Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To One Dead II 0 1.344 05/14/2011 - 13:17 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/Dedicada Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To One Dead 0 1.539 05/14/2011 - 13:16 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/Dedicada Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To Li T'ai Po 0 1.188 05/14/2011 - 13:15 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/Dedicada Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To Georgie May 0 1.621 05/14/2011 - 13:15 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To an Enemy 0 550 05/14/2011 - 13:14 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To a Man 0 439 05/14/2011 - 13:13 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To a Friend 0 801 05/14/2011 - 13:12 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : To a Discarded Steel Rail 0 583 05/14/2011 - 13:11 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Summer Evening: New York Subway-Station 0 626 05/14/2011 - 13:11 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Steel-Mills: South Chicago 0 605 05/14/2011 - 13:10 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : South State Street: Chicago 0 760 05/14/2011 - 13:05 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Sometimes Jaded, Sometimes Tranquil 0 531 05/14/2011 - 13:03 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Soldiers 0 680 05/14/2011 - 13:03 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Smiles 0 497 05/14/2011 - 13:02 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Simple Account of a Poet's Life 0 631 05/14/2011 - 13:01 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Sedate and Archaic, a Twilight-Frilled Haze 0 680 05/14/2011 - 13:00 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Seaweed from Mars 0 808 05/14/2011 - 12:59 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : The Scrub-Woman 0 817 05/14/2011 - 12:58 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Rear Porches of an Apartment Building 0 573 05/14/2011 - 12:57 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Rattlesnake Mountain Fable II 0 733 05/14/2011 - 12:56 Inglés
Poesia Consagrada/General Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Rattlesnake Mountain Fable I 0 566 05/14/2011 - 12:55 Inglés