Much Of Living Is An Attempt To

We Could Think Or Feel As We Wished Toward The Characters, Or As The Poet, Discounting History, Invited Us To; We Were The Poet's Guest, His World Was His Own Kingdom, Reached, As One Of The Poems Told Us, Through The 'ring Of Words.

So We Went To Bed, Assaulted By Sleep That Fumed At Us From Medicine Glasses, Or Was Wielded From Small Sweet-coated Tablets -- Dainty Bricks Of Dream Wrapped In The Silk Stockings Of Oblivion.

She Grew More And More Silent About What Really Mattered. She Curled Inside Herself Like One Of Those Black Chimney Brushes, The Little Shellfish You See On The Beach, And You Touch Them, And Then Go Inside And Don’t Come Out.

Every Morning I Woke In Dread, Waiting For The Day Nurse To Go On Her Rounds And Announce From The List Of Names In Her Hand Whether Or Not I Was For Shock Treatment, The New And Fashionable Means Of Quieting People And Of Making Them Realize That Orders Are To Be Obeyed And Floors Are To Be Polished Without Anyone Protesting And Faces Are To Be Made To Be Fixed Into Smiles And Weeping Is A Crime.

Divisions Of The Kind Were Fashionable At That Time, And It Was So Easy To Stifle One's Need To Help By Deciding That Help Could Neither Be Accepted Nor Understood.