Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


COLOPHON by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG

First Line: THE OCCIDENT AND THE ORIENT
Last Line: DARES CLIMB THE OTHER?
Subject(s): CULTURE CONFLICT; LONG ISLAND (N.Y.); UNITED STATES; AMERICA;

The Occident and the Orient,
posterior and posterior,
sitting tight, holding fast
the culture dumped by them
onto primitive America,
Atlantic to Pacific,
were monumental colophons
a disorderly country fellow,
vulgar Long Islander,
not overfond of the stench
choking native respiration,
poked down off the shelf
with the aid of some
mere blades of grass;
and deliberately climbing up,
brazenly usurping one end
of the new America,
now waves his spears aloft
and shouts down valleys,
across plains,
over mountains,
into heights:
Come, what man of you
dares climb the other?



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