This vacuous, clattering spectacle
Has collected the heart-beats of a nation.
Greed, like a gorged Machiavelli,
Slumps down in the green plush seat
And wonders whether it has not blundered,
While a sentimental song,
Like a kindly infant,
Interferes with the clink of coins.
Hatred, juvenile and deformed,
Earns the smirking oblivion
Of fat women mangling sound.
The wrangling babble of ignorance
Turns to silence underneath
The opium of innuendoes.
Acrobats appear and seem
To be raping phantom lovers
No longer beautiful and fresh
But mechanically endured.
Part of the audience is also
A battered stoic clasping worn-out mistresses.
Clog-dancers enervate
The thumping martyrs of their feet,
And chorus-girls offer the lines of their bodies
With whining voices.
Dreams are cheap, and green plush seats
Appropriately, snugly hold
The expensive hallucinations.


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Chicago