Survey

I am so lonely for the twentieth century,

for the deeply felt, obscene graffiti

of armed men and the beautiful bridges

that make them so small and carry them

into the hearts of cities written like words

across nothing, the dense void

history became in my beautiful century.

When a man talks reason, he postpones something.

He gets in the way of a machine that knows him

for the sad vengeance he is, somewhere close

to the bald name of his city. "New York"

means "strike back." "Attica" means "strike back"

and so does anyplace in the world

in the huge eyes and tender hands of my century.

I went to the capital. I had a banner,

and there were thousands of people like me.

There was an airplane, and for a moment

heavy with laurel and sprays of peach blossom

something that has never happened before

stretched like a woman's shadow on a hedge

between the plane and the people who saw it flying.

It was the real name of the century.

It told everyone to strike back

until there was no reason in the world

except a machine stalled overhead

that knows everyone and is as delicate

as peach blossom. But the poor years come too late.

Source: New Dark Ages (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)