METROPOLITAN EVENING

 Makeup and cigarettes, the very words wring my heart now,
Smell so, memory; watcher, the mind, a frogman’s mask of
Glass and rubber melted in the human machine rigid.

Fields mountains forest desert: garden of the Hesperides,
Atlanta shimmering in diamonds looks with microscopic
Intensity at Hera’s water-garden in the West, utmost

Beneath the trees on the rising bank; beyond, in the stone
Fort on top of the grey hill empty but permanent Nyx skulks.
Meanwhile the sky changes, otherwise nothing happens.

In the Metropolis the deceiving chauffeur drives his silent black
Car back and forth in front of the Bellas Artes with its background
Of fronds palms silver streets where roseate ice cream lamps burn

At dusk. A planet’s eye view of night’s multifarious activity;
Goblins from Tartaros making war on heaven.