Plurality is all. I walk among the restaurants, <br />the theatres, the grocery stores; I ride the cars <br />and hear of Mrs. Bedford’s teeth and Albuquerque, <br />strikes unsettled, someone’s simply marvelous date, <br />news of the German Jews, the baseball scores, <br />storetalk and whoretalk, talk of wars. I turn <br />the pages of a thousand books to read <br />the names of Buddha, Malthus, Walker Evans, Stendhal, André Gide, <br />Ouspenski; note the terms: obscurantism, <br />factorize, fagaceous, endocarp; descend <br />the nervous stairs to hear the broken ends <br />of songs that float through city air. <br />In Osnabrück and Ogden, on the Passamaquoddy Bay, <br />in Ahmednagar, Waco (Neb.), in Santa Fé, <br />propelled by zeros, zinc, and zephyrs, always I’m pursued <br />by thoughts of what I am, authority, remembrance, food, <br />the letter on the mezzanine, the unemployed, dogs’ lonely faces, pianos and decay. <br /> <br /> <br />Plurality is all. I sympathize, but cannot grieve <br />too long for those who wear their dialectics on their sleeves. <br />The pattern’s one I sometimes rather like; there’s really nothing wrong <br />with it for some. But I should add: It doesn’t wear for long, <br />before I push the elevator bell and quickly leave.<br /><br />Weldon Kees<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/statement-with-rhymes/
