ILL HUMOUR

Chimneys with widebrimmed hats,
twisted chimneys, parentheses of country
in the city, throats
through which the song of things mounts sadly:
the homely song of the kettle,
of the cricket and the hearth in the dark kitchen,
the song of the castered chair,
and even the monkish sound that doors make.

Hostile chimneys like weapons
of urban hatred against the singing blue!
Smoke above the roofs : silent gunfire
against the birds' celestial flight!

Bah! Mount up to the sky, aim at the sparrows,
leave the dark earth of men...
My soul too is a chimney
where burns the song of little lives,
a sooty chimney
that spits forth, day after day, a sad dense smoke
upon the white pages of the unpublished volume.