a man who had fallen among thieves

    lay by the roadside on his back

    dressed in fifteenthrate ideas

    wearing a round jeer¹ for a hat

    fate per a somewhat more than less

    emancipated² evening

    had in return for consciousness

    endowed him with a changeless grin

    whereon a dozen staunch and Meal

    citizens did graze at pause

    then fired by hypercivic zeal³

    sought newer pastures or because

    swaddled with a frozen brook⁴

    of pinkest vomit⁵ out of eyes

    which noticed nobody he looked

    as if he did not care to rise

    one hand did nothing on the vest

    its wideflung friend clenched⁶ weakly dirt

    while the mute trouserfly confessed

    a button solemnly inert⁷.

    Brushing from whom the stiffened puke

    i put him all into my arms

    and staggered banged with terror through

    a million billion trillion stars