Lured by the wall, and drawn <br />To stare below the roof, <br />Where pigeons nest aloof <br />From prowling cats and men, <br />I count the sash and bar <br />Secured to granite stone, <br />And note the daylight gone, <br />Supper and silence near. <br /> <br />Close to the wall inside, <br />Immured, empty of love, <br />A man I have wondered of <br />Lies patient, vacant-eye. <br />A month and a day ago <br />He stopped his car and found <br />A girl on the darkening ground, <br />And killed her in the snow. <br /> <br />Beside his cell, I am told, <br />Hardy perennial bums <br />Complain till twilight comes <br />For hunger and for cold. <br />They hardly know of a day <br />That saw their hunger pass. <br />Bred to the dark, their flesh <br />Peacefully withers away. <br /> <br />The man who sits alone, <br />He is the one for wonder, <br />Who sways his fingers under <br />The cleanly shaven chin, <br />Who sees, in the shaving mirror <br />Pinned to the barren wall, <br />The uprooted ghost of all: <br />The simple, easy terror. <br /> <br />Caught between sky and earth, <br />Poor stupid animal, <br />Stripped naked to the wall, <br />He saw the blundered birth <br />Of daemons beyond sound. <br />Sick of the dark, he rose <br />For love, and now he goes <br />Back to the broken ground. <br /> <br />Now, as he grips the chain <br />And holds the wall, to bear <br />What no man ever bore, <br />He hears the bums complain; <br />But I mourn no soul but his, <br />Not even the bums who die, <br />Nor the homely girl whose cry <br />Crumbled his pleading kiss.<br /><br />James Arlington Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-poem-about-george-doty-in-the-death-house/
