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From “Mid-American Songs”
IN the spring, when winds blew and farmers were plowing fields, | |
| It came into my mind to be glad because of my brutality. | |
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| Along a street I went and over a bridge. | |
| I went through many streets in my city and over many bridges. | |
| Men and women I struck with my fists and my hands began to bleed. | 5 |
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| Under a bridge I crawled, and stood trembling with joy | |
| At the river’s edge. | |
| Because it was spring and soft sunlight came through the cracks | |
| Of the bridge, I tried to understand myself. | |
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| Out of the mud at the river’s edge I moulded myself a god, | 10 |
| A grotesque little god with a twisted face, | |
| A god for myself and my men. | |
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| You see now, brother, how it was. | |
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| I was a man with clothes made by a Jewish tailor; | |
| Cunningly wrought clothes, made for a nameless one. | 15 |
| I wore a white collar and someone had given me a jeweled pin | |
| To wear at my throat. | |
| That amused and hurt me too. | |
| No one knew that I knelt in the mud beneath the bridge | |
| In the city of Chicago. | 20 |
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| You see I am whispering my secret to you. | |
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| I want you to believe in my insanity and to understand that I love God— | |
| That’s what I want. | |
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| And then, you see, it was spring and soft sunlight | |
| Came through the cracks of the bridge. | 25 |
| I had been long alone in a strange place where no gods came. | |
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| Creep, men, and kiss the twisted face of my mud god. | |
| I’ll not hit you with my bleeding fists. | |
| I’m a twisted God myself. | |
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| It is spring and love has come to me. | 30 |
| Love has come to me | |
| And to my men. | |
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