My faults have
settled down
in quiet suburbs.
Soap-washed days
paper my calender,
plastered over each other:
motel wallpaper.
In the regiments of City men,
soldiers, sailors,
insurance milkmen,
it is only I
who is awake.
The trouble is:
these are dead people.
Slack-jawed
in bowler hats and suits,
squinting at wristwatches and
elevator buttons,
never fully at ease.
They will never suspect me,
my faults, having settled down
in quiet suburbs.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Wolf amongst dogs? ... i think i get it; how does it live amongst them and yet be different from them? ps, even though a good half of this poem is a notch or two above the usual guff of human life, could you be a little clearer; who are the ‘insurance milkmen? ’