In Back of the Real
railroad yard in San Jose
I wandered desolate
in
front of a tank factory
and sat on a bench
near
the switchman's shack.
A flower
lay on the hay on
the asphalt highway
--the
dread hay flower
I thought--It had a
brittle
black stem and
corolla of yellowish dirty
spikes
like Jesus' inchlong
crown, and a soiled
dry
center cotton tuft
like a used shaving brush
that's
been lying under
the garage for a year.
Yellow,
yellow flower, and
flower of industry,
tough
spiky ugly flower,
flower nonetheless,
with
the form of the great yellow
Rose in your brain!
This
is the flower of the World.