lf--
among the ways and paths of the flow of the Republic
faces come to a standstill, sixty clockticks count--
in the name of the Boy, in the name of the Republic.

(A million faces a thousand miles from Pennsylvania Avenue
stay frozen with a look, a clocktick, a moment--
skeleton riders on skeleton horses--the nickering high horse
laugh,
the whinny and the howl up Pennsylvania Avenue:
who? why? where?)

(So people far from the asphalt footing of Pennsylvania
Avenue look, wonder, mumble--the riding white-jaw
phantoms ride hi-eeee, hi-eeee, hi-yi, hi-yi, hi-eeee--
the proclamations of the honorable orators mix with the
top-sergeants whistling the roll call.)

If when the clockticks counted sixty,
when the heartbeats of the Republic
came to a stop for a minute,
if the Boy had happened to sit up,
happening to sit up as Lazarus sat up, in the story,
then the first shivering language to drip off his mouth
might have come as, "Thank God," or "Am I dreaming?"
or "What the hell" or "When do we eat?"
or "Kill 'em, kill 'em, the...."
or "Was that ... a rat ... ran over my face?"
or "For Christ's sake, gimme water, gimme water,"
or "Blub blub, bloo bloo...."
or any bubbles of shell shock gibberish
from the gashes of No Man's Land.

Maybe some buddy knows,
some sister, mother, sweetheart,
maybe some girl who sat with him once
when a two-horn silver moon
slid on the peak of a house-roof gable,
and promises lived in the air of the night,
when the air was filled with promises,
when any little slip-shoe lovey
could pick a promise out of the air.

"Feed it to 'em,
they lap it up,
bull ... bull ... bull,"
Said a movie news reel camera man,
Said a Washington newspaper correspondent,
Said a baggage handler lugging a trunk,
Said a two-a-day vaudeville juggler,
Said a hanky-pank selling jumping-jacks.
"Hokum--they lap it up," said the bunch.

And a tall scar-face ball player,
Played out as a ball player,
Made a speech of his own for the hero boy,
Sent an earful of his own to the dead buck private:
"It's all safe now, buddy,
Safe when you say yes,
Safe for the yes-men."

He was a tall scar-face battler
With his face in a newspaper
Reading want ads, reading jokes,
Reading love, murder, politics,
Jumping from jokes back to the w