The Songs of Maximus: SONG 1

By Charles Olson

                     colored pictures
of all things to eat: dirty
postcards
               And words, words, words   
all over everything
                                              No eyes or ears left   
to do their own doings (all

invaded, appropriated, outraged, all senses

including the mind, that worker on what is
                                                                  And that other sense   
made to give even the most wretched, or any of us, wretched,
that consolation (greased
                                        lulled   
even the street-cars

song
Copyright Credit: Charles Olson, “The Songs of Maximus: ‘Song 1’ ” from The Maximus Poems, published by the University of California Press. Copyright © 1983 by Charles Olson. Reprinted with the permission of The Literary Estate of Charles Olson.
Source: The Maximus Poems (University of California Press, 1987)