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And what about those,
The bricks at your feet,
Elling all over the place,
Titanic tesserae
In rose-sooty hues,
Rough-surfaced and speckled,
Dense sawtoothed waves
Lapping their bounding shores,
Surrounding more tranquil
Sahara-toned squares.
The overall theme
Must be "islands and ocean,"
Right-angularized
To express an ideal.

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The intervals slink by us,
Undetectable is their tread;
In their wake: a twinge of woe,
A comma-pause of dread.

Within the basket-weavings
Our livelihoods sweat out,
The caged and frightened captive
Whimpers: "Let me out!"

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Fancies and fallacies
cloud our perceptions.
Layer by layer we bundle ourselves
in gauzy gaudiments.
You dislike dissemblers?
You lie to yourself!
You live on deceptions
in a boudoir veiled and perfumed
with flamboyant silks and scents,
denying the world beyond
even exists.

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The charms are going . . .
House by house, block by block,
They're leaving in droves:
The shady bowers; the cloistered courts;
The serpentine paths all moss and brick;
The woody plots—wild, weedy, and dense;
The soggy swaths; and on a fence,
Wisteria draperies running amok.

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Euphorious euonymus
Does somewhat sound euphonious,
And in fall colors glorious
Enkindles backgrounds riotous
With dazzling daubs uproarious;
To criticize the marvelous
Is grievous and erroneous.

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