The Angel Of Democracy



I’m required to work in masses and rise up out of the glut.
I’m supposed to be the one who is many.

I eat hope smothered in quick congress for the benefit of “Whom?”
and make right and wrong out of the many sadnesses.

I’ve been told that sometimes to make a museum
you have to break a few citizenry,

so I go out and get human beings and allow them
to sleep on sidewalks near steam grates.

I tell all the various Europes that if they want
bad smells and more dead birds;

that if they want train stations ruined;
that if they want their streets depraved with “Sold!”

I’d be glad to nourish their young
on quantities of lead paint.

A committee came to me and begged me to stop
fashion before it crossed over into war,

but I told them a quorum like me has too many sunlights
for their verbs, and that if they want the job done right

they should make priests out of their own aristocracies
and then ride the wild tiger all over this miserable, old hotel.



see the filming of a drought scene
*
rebehold the Angel of Democracy