The guy with poetry books
Gets on last,
Dreaming of—but not learning from—the past,
Finding everything which came before
Interesting, even the painful incidents—
Thank God they didn’t last!—
Made vague with the passing of time,
So even the pain
He contemplates dreamily
As he slowly boards the train.
If there is wisdom, or rhyme,
A good melancholy refrain,
Stretched out in a book,
It makes him excited to an extreme degree.
It is not the jazz
Or the dancing he loves,
Nor me. It is the poems
To statues. At dawn. With doves.