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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TAKE PHYSIC, POMP! by JAMES OPPENHEIM

First Line: I WAS AS A SIEVE FOR THE WIND THIS MORNING
Last Line: "I THINK OF LEAR'S CRY: ""TAKE PHYSIC, POMP!"

I WAS as a sieve for the wind this morning:
I hurried to be out of it:
Zero weather, merciless and gray ...

Yet there on the pave beside the park rail,
Leaning toward the brown frozen grass,
Stood one so thinly clad,
He bit on a wad of paper between his teeth to cover his lips and nose,
His jacket was stuffed with newspaper, his shoes with rags ...
He was all puffy red and bleary and huddled ...

At the same time he was throwing bits of stale bread to some sparrows ...

Curious!
Was it the extremity of his suffering made him a brother of life?
Ran the pain so deep that he felt even for birds?

I think of Lear's cry: "Take physic, pomp!"



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