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At the Ball Game

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly
 
by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them—
 
all the exciting detail
of the chase
 
and the escape, the error
the flash of genuis—
 
all to no end save beauty
the eternal—
 
So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful
 
for this
to be warned against
 
saluted and defied—
It is alive, venomous
 
it smiles grimly
its words cut—
 
The flashy female with her
mother, gets it—
 
The Jew gets it straight—it
is deadly, terrifying—
 
It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution
 
It is beauty itself
that lives
 
day by day in them
idly—
 
This is
the power of their faces
 
It is summer, it is the solstice
the crowd is
 
cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail
 
permanently, seriously
without thought

from Spring and All

#AmericanWriters

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