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When I was a ten-year-old book worm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love. - Erica Jong

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          DELUSION

An empty  alley. Swift streamlets running...
"It's spring!" they mutter, A girl shrieks with laughter.
A drunken red dwarf dances up. That's funny!
He won't let her pass. What's the old thing after?

The girl's in a fright. Pulls her kerchief tighter.
The sun's behind a chimney. The  dwarf, a red ball,
Jumps into a puddle. With wrinkled hand, lightly
He plays with the water. It's evenfall.

Reflections beckon. The girl feels chilly.
A street lamp winks afar off... Oh, look!Ñ
The red sun has sunk behind a building.
Wild laughter. Splashes. Factory smoke.

Sounds, indistinct ones, floating nearer...
An old man coughs... Water drips... A pair
Of dilated eyes with no pupils in them.
Two cold, lifeless hands clutching the air.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

A shapeless wet bundle Ñ Wretched! HomelessiÑ
She lies by a fence in the scary dark.
Don't let the night end!.. Her weeping is toneless.
A disgrace to return with the devil's mark.

Overturned tubs. In the streamlets merrily
The blueness dances. It's morning anew.
Red chevaux-de-frise. Soldiers cheerily
Splashing through the water: left, right! one, two!

The girl lies asleep by the fence. A hairy
Head with a mutter bends over her. Boo!
The ugly old dwarf is busy, very:
He's sailing shoes in the stream: one, two!

The shoes spin along, but are soon overtaken
By a red cap. See it? There it floats.
Wild laughter. Splashes. In the cap's wake come
A beard, a dog's ears, and a red tail coat.

They rush past. What's the water murmuring?
The girl slowly wakes, in her eyes red-blue rings.
Sun beams playing, water shimmering.
Streams, sprays and spurts of it. Spring. Spring. Spring.

1904