Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
This is a property of type Text.
G
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<p>Smokeless chimneys, damaged bridges, rotting wharves and choked canals, <br />
Tramlines buckled, smashed trucks lying on their side across the rails;
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<p>Or, in friendly fireside circle, sit and listen for the crash <br />
Meaning that the mob has realized something’s up, and start to smash;
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<p>Get there if you can and see the land you once were proud to own <br />
Though the roads have almost vanished and the expresses never run:
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<p>Power-stations locked, deserted, since they drew the boiler fires; <br />
Pylons fallen or subsiding, trailing dead high-tension wires;
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<p>If we really want to live, we’d better start at once to try; <br />
If we don’t, it doesn’t matter, but we’d better start to die.
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<p>Perfect pater. Marvellous mater. Knock the critic down who dares — <br />
Very well, believe it, copy; till your hair is white as theirs.
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<p>Squeeze into the works through broken windows or through damp-sprung doors; <br />
See the rotted shafting, see holes gaping in the upper floors;
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<p>Have things gone too far already? Are we done for? Must we wait <br />
Hearing doom’s approaching footsteps regular down miles of straight;
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<p>Shut up talking, charming in the best suits to be had in town, <br />
Lecturing on navigation while the ship is going down.
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<p>Lawrence was brought down by smut-hounds, Blake went dotty as he sang, <br />
Homer Lane was killed in action by the Twickenham Baptist gang.
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<p>At the theatre, playing tennis, driving motor cars we had, <br />
In our continental villas, mixing cocktails for a cad.
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<p>On the sopping esplanade or from our dingy lodgings we <br />
Stare out dully at the rain which falls for miles into the sea.
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<p>Lured with their compelling logic, charmed with beauty of their verse, <br />
With their loaded sideboards whispered ‘Better join us, life is worse.’
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I
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<p>Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea. From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks, passers-by go in a breath to be witnesses of large cool sponges, large cool fishes, large cool valleys and ridges of coral spread silent in the soak of the ocean floor thousands of years.
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<p>A naked swimmer dives. A knife in his right hand shoots a streak at the throat of a shark. The tail of the shark lashes. One swing would kill the swimmer... Soon the knife goes into the soft underneck of the veering fish... Its mouthful of teeth, each tooth a dagger itself, set row on row, glistens when the shuddering, yawning cadaver is hauled up by the brothers of the swimmer.
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<p>Outside in the street is the murmur and singing of life in the sun—horses, motors, women trapsing along in flimsy clothes, play of sun-fire in their blood.
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<p>High noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors. Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes.
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<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 5em;"> <i>To the Williamson Brothers</i></span>
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<p>No more poker in the shade,<br />
No more chance to make a raid.<br />
No more chance for them to hide,<br />
They must ride and ride and ride.
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