The Late American Experience

Rain, interminable Gray.
Down the long sides of wall
Stacked on wall, brick on brick, tall
Limits of yesterday
And her construction.
Down long trees, long streets, long
Curses of the workers: song
Now of destruction.

Bring low the buildings, bring
The dust of shattered mortar to the earth;
Give forth an emblematic birth
But fruitless.  Sing
Of ones who faint, fail, fall
Dwelling in doubt, wishing vainly in the place of hope,
Phantasmal wealth of debt, the entire scope
Of their desires and terms of definition. All.

A gamble past, now lost, still losing and a dread
-A wait, while the past,
Devoured by gambles, breathes last.
And now the dread of debt-collector's tread
Out in the hall.
The future also cut off, Truth being undesired
and held at bay- steeped in self, soul required,
Sold! To the Collector in the hall.

Sing! Of yesterday, and not of yesterday,
Now, and of tomorrow.- Not forever-
Thank God, waiting is not forever.
Rain, interminable Gray.