Unintended Consequences

The Fool who stands blindfolded, bare, and square
On the hurlish blind curve of a railroad track
    is less of a fool than

The Fool who ignores the train's rumble and squeal
(The snort of the bull in the daisy-dot meadow)

     is less of a fool than

The Fool who pretends not to hear the shrill horn--
The ear-shredding blast--
As the engine oncrushes with virile momentum.

But the greater Fool than these rinky-dink fools
Is the Fool who invites his comrades and clan--
His wife, sons and daughters, his half and full brothers,
His mother and father and sisters and cousins--
To picnic on those polished bands

     and smut-stained ties,

Who entreats them to rest on canvas cots
Spread crosswise across the thunderer's path,
Who lulls them to sleep with sweet lullabies,
Then curls up among them, ready to die.

But greater still are the Fools who allow
Such fools to pule and posture and plot
And havoc whole townfuls of innocents
By derailing the Nine-fifteen from Chicago,
Sending it tumulting down the embankment,
Conflagrations ensuing�"those kinds of fools
And the ones who permit or excuse their mayhem,
Who sanction their dirty, delirious games
Played out in the open, on life-sized landscapes,
Not basement models.
So many fools, it oppresses the mind;
Both the common strain and the eminent Fools
Who derive their vigor from lessers' consent,
The power to throw their arms around throngs
Of culls and compeers,
To rope in more dopes for their suicide stunts.