Four Poems

Elegy: The Calypso Saloon

The saloon will swim in a chiaroscuro,

the waiter will be Gallic but uncontentious,

with a shrug he will agree and pass on by.

The tobacco smoke will be thin and blue,

the curtains of red velvet will conceal

a single door to the separate lavatories.

Table cloths, where provided, will be white,

distinctly polyglot the hum of voices;

of our current passions we will not speak,

but we will not suppress their violence.

Of our errors we prattle more than enough,

we will see how few our convictions are,

we will have polished our sly judgments.

If the company is to be fourfold,

this will be a meeting of some people
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