Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
This is a property of type Text.
D
<div class="poem">
<p>my hitch decided no<br />
got out at the last crossroad<br />
& just passed<br />
waving from a new studebaker<br />
at me leaning against this robbers-roost garage<br />
with time to telepath you something<br />
while they screw in a new pump i dont need
</p>
</div> +
F
<div class="poem">
<p>Just as busy, the crowded street; <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> Cars and wagons go rolling on, </span><br />
Children chuckle, and lovers meet,— <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> Don’t they know that our love is gone? </span><br />
No one pauses to pay a tear; <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> None walks slow, for the love that’s through,—</span><br />
I might mention, my recent dear, <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> I’ve reverted to normal, too.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Now it’s over, and now it’s done; <br />
Why does everything look the same? <br />
Just as bright, the unheeding sun,— <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> Can’t it see that the parting came? </span><br />
People hurry and work and swear, <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> Laugh and grumble and die and wed, </span><br />
Ponder what they will eat and wear,—<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;"> Don’t they know that our love is dead?</span>
</p>
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<div class="poem">
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>I'm makin' a road <br />
For the cars to fly by on, <br />
Makin' a road <br />
Through the palmetto thicket <br />
For light and civilization <br />
To travel on.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Sure, <br />
A road helps everybody. <br />
Rich folks ride — <br />
And I get to see 'em ride. <br />
I ain't never seen nobody <br />
Ride so fine before.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>I'm makin' a road <br />
For the rich to sweep over <br />
In their big cars <br />
And leave me standin' here.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Hey, Buddy, look! <br />
I'm makin' a road!
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Hey, Buddy! <br />
Look at me!
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Capped arbiter of beauty in this street<br />
That narrows darkly into motor dawn,—<br />
You, here beside me, delicate ambassador<br />
Of intricate slain numbers that arise<br />
In whispers, naked of steel;<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 11em;"> religious gunman!</span><br />
Who faithfully, yourself, will fall too soon,<br />
And in other ways than as the wind settles<br />
On the sixteen thrifty bridges of the city:<br />
Let us unbind our throats of fear and pity.<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 17em;"> We even,</span><br />
Who drove speediest destruction<br />
In corymbulous formations of mechanics,—<br />
Who hurried the hill breezes, spouting malice<br />
Plangent over meadows, and looked down<br />
On rifts of torn and empty houses<br />
Like old women with teeth unjubilant<br />
That waited faintly, briefly and in vain:
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 11em;"> III</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>A goose, tobacco and cologne—<br />
Three winged and gold-shod prophecies of heaven,<br />
The lavish heart shall always have to leaven<br />
And spread with bells and voices, and atone<br />
The abating shadows of our conscript dust.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>We know, eternal gunman, our flesh remembers<br />
The tensile boughs, the nimble blue plateaus,<br />
The mounted, yielding cities of the air!<br />
That saddled sky that shook down vertical<br />
Repeated play of fire—no hypogeum<br />
Of wave or rock was good against one hour.<br />
We did not ask for that, but have survived,<br />
And will persist to speak again before<br />
All stubble streets that have not curved<br />
To memory, or known the ominous lifted arm<br />
That lowers down the arc of Helen’s brow<br />
To saturate with blessing and dismay.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Anchises’ navel, dripping of the sea,—<br />
The hands Erasmus dipped in gleaming tides,<br />
Gathered the voltage of blown blood and vine;<br />
Delve upward for the new and scattered wine,<br />
O brother-thief of time, that we recall.<br />
Laugh out the meagre penance of their days<br />
Who dare not share with us the breath released,<br />
The substance drilled and spent beyond repair<br />
For golden, or the shadow of gold hair.<br />
Distinctly praise the years, whose volatile<br />
Blamed bleeding hands extend and thresh the height<br />
The imagination spans beyond despair,<br />
Outpacing bargain, vocable and prayer.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>The car backfired, slowed. She yanked the gear from third into first. She sped up. The motor ran like a terrified pounding heart, while the car crept on by inches through filthy mud that stretched ahead of her without relief.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>She had had to put the car at that hole. It dropped, far down, and it stayed down. The engine stalled. She started it, but the back wheels spun merrily round and round, without traction. She did not make one inch. When she again killed the blatting motor, she let it stay dead. She peered at her father.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>"Well, anyway, most men would be cussing. You acquire merit by not beating me. I believe that's done, in moments like this. If you'd like, I'll get out and crawl around in the mud, and play turtle for you."
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>She was very tired. She wondered if she might not stop for a moment. Then she came to an upslope. The car faltered; felt indecisive beneath her. She jabbed down the accelerator. Her hands pushed at the steering wheel as though she were pushing the car. The engine picked up, sulkily kept going. To the eye, there was merely a rise in the rolling ground, but to her anxiety it was a mountain up which she--not the engine, but herself--pulled this bulky mass, till she had reached the top, and was safe again--for a second. Still there was no visible end of the mud.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Instantly, the dismay of it rushing at her, she saw the end of the patch of gravel. The road ahead was a wet black smear, criss-crossed with ruts. The car shot into a morass of prairie gumbo--which is mud mixed with tar, fly-paper, fish glue, and well-chewed, chocolate-covered caramels. When cattle get into gumbo, the farmers send for the stump-dynamite and try blasting.
</p>
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