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Archibald MacLeish


Conquistador. Archibald MacLeish


The End of the World

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot 

The armless ambidextrian was lighting 
A match between his great and second toe, 
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting 
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum 
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough 
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb 
Quite unexpectedly to top blew off: 

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over 
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes, 
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover, 
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies, 
There in the sudden blackness the black pall 
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

John Ashbery

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