I resolve to be better men
than the tripe what came before me—
the unheady scowls that mangled
a century of minds; the quivering mass
of un-courage before guns ungutted;
the tea-timing termagants whose
3 o'clock wails still curdle from
the greenbacked Gehry—

but ezra taught me better.
pull down thy vanity, he wagged
with two feet in the fire and one finger
through the sane:
again, i say, pull down.