Nor Am I Out of It

Let's say Dostoevsky earned a stay

Of execution that afternoon.

Let's say the endlessly intricate

Atavisms favored by journalism

Never did other than worsen

An existence in the cell of a skull

By hastening its extinction.

Let's say nothing. The world,

Forever shrinking and expanding 

Again, new frontiers, less Lebensraum,

Refuses to behave our selves

More basely than our selves behave.

This is nonsense. The night descends

The way a curtain raises to reveal

The real actors, still in costume, out

Of character, sweating and grinning

To our sustained and envious applause

So close to the untouchable stars.