Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six or more.
Whether at dusk or
Or at blinding noon, a
Of shadows that no
Excludes.—One like a kind of scrawl,
Hands scrawled trembling and blue,
A harelipped and hunchbacked
With a smile like a grapefruit rind,
Who jabbers the way I
When the brain is empty and
And the guests no longer care:
A clown, who shudders and
Is a man with a mouth of
Trapped in a dentist's chair.
Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six or more:
One with his face gone rotten,
Most hideous of all,
Whose crutches shriek on the
As a fingernail on a
Tears open some splintered
Of childhood.
Down the
We enter a thousand
That pour the hours back,
That silhouette the
With shadows ripped from war,
Accusing and rigid,
As the streets we are discolored by.
The crutches fall to the floor.
Not a third that walks beside me,
But five or six, or
Than fingers or brain can bear—A monster strung with guts,
A coward covered with hair,
Matted and down to his knees,
Murderers, liars, thieves,
Moving in darkened
Through daylight and evening
Until the eyelids close,
Snapped like the blades of a knife,
And your dream of their death begins.
Possessors and possessed,
They keep the bedside
As a doctor or a
Might wait the darkness
Until the pale daybreak—Protectors of your life.
