U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [209]
WAR DECREASES MARRIAGES AND
BIRTHS
Oh ashes to ashes
And dust to dust
If the shrapnel dont get you
Then the eightyeights must
THE CAMERA EYE (29)
the raindrops fal one by one out of the horsechestnut tree over the arbor onto the table in the abandoned beer-garden and the puddly gravel and my clipped skul where my fingers move gently forward and back over the fuzzy knobs and hol ows
spring and we've just been swimming in the Marne
way off somewhere beyond the fat clouds on the horizon they are hammering on a tin roof in the rain in the spring after a swim in the Marne with that hammering to the north pounding the thought of death into our ears the winey thought of death stings in the spring blood that throbs in the sunburned neck up and down the bel y
-71-under the tight belt hurries like cognac into the tips of my toes and the lobes of my ears and my fingers stroking the fuzzy closecropped skul
shyly tingling fingers feel out the limits of the hard immortal skul under the flesh a deathshead and
skeleton sits wearing glasses in the arbor under the lucid occasional raindrops inside the new khaki uniform inside my twentyoneyearord body that's been swimming in the Marne in red and whitestriped trunks in Chalons in the spring
RICHARD ELLSWORTH SAVAGE
The years Dick was little he never heard anything
about his Dad, but when he was doing his homework eve-nings up in his little room in the attic he'd start thinking about him sometimes; he'd throw himself on the bed and lie on his back trying to remember what he had been like and Oak Park and everything before Mother had been so unhappy and they had had to come east to live with Aunt Beatrice. There was the smel of bay rum and cigarsmoke and he was sitting on the back of an upholstered sofa be-side a big man in a panama hat who shook the sofa when he laughed; he held on to Dad's back and punched his arm and the muscle was hard like a chair or a table and when Dad laughed he could feel it rumble in his back,
"Dicky, keep your dirty feet off my palm beach suit," and he was on his hands and knees in the sunlight that poured through the lace curtains of the window trying to pick the big purple roses off the carpet; they were al standing in front of a red automobile and Dad's face was red and he
-72-smelt of armpits and white steam was coming out around, and people were saying Safetyvalve. Downstairs Dad and Mummy were at dinner and there was company and wine and a new butler and it must be awful funny because they laughed so much and the knives and forks went click click al the time; Dad found him in his nightgown peeking through the portières and came out awful funny and ex-cited smel ing like wine and whaled him and mother came out and said, " Henry, don't strike the child," and they stood hissing at one another in low voices behind the por-tières on account of company and Mummy had picked Dick up and carried him upstairs crying in her evening dress al lacy and frizzly and with big puffy silk sleeves; touching silk put his teeth on edge, made him shudder al down his spine. He and Henry had had tan over-coats with pockets in them like grownup overcoats and tan caps and he'd lost the button off the top of his. Way back there it was sunny and windy; Dick got tired and sickyfeeling when he tried to remember back like that and it got him so he couldn't keep his mind on tomorrow's lessons and would pul out "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" that he had under the mattress because Mother took books away when they weren't just about the lessons and would read just a little and then he'd for-get everything reading and wouldn't know his lessons the next day.
Al the same he got along very wel at school and the teachers liked him, particularly Miss Teazle, the English teacher, because he had nice manners and said little things that weren't fresh but that made them laugh. Miss Teazle said he showed real feeling for English composition.