New at IWP Books: Leonard Bacon, 1932, The Furiso.

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Pio Speranza at Trascara sat
At his drugstore-door, slowly recovering from
One of the worst of modern ailments that
Can hit a hero — shell-shock. He would go numb
At moments, since that bomb had knocked him flat,
And foam at the mouth — a little — and be dumb,
And a prey to loathly reflexes, until
He could beat ’em by an effort of the will

Which was wont to wander ever so far away,
Leaving him feeling weak and insecure
And comfortless, afraid of night and day
And people, undefended and unsure.
Even his wife had got at times that grey
Look all things had, which he could not endure.
But her eyes summoned something to their deep.
And sometimes in her bosom there was sleep,

When came queer visions of a ship that sailed
Somewhere. Bound whither? His mind, it seemed, was tired.
The question, whatever it implied, entailed
Effort he could not make, though he desired
To know. Once was a spirit-ship. He quailed
Before an enigma. Perhaps the thing had fired
His nature once — before he was like this,
Afraid, and on the edge of an abyss.

He had a cigarette, he had the paper,
And did not know quite what to do with either,
If his leaping nerves were always going to caper.
But will came from deep waters for a breather,
And made him feel she was once more the shaper
Of his fortune, trampling vast despair beneath her.
He strove to read. With an effort greater yet
He lighted the vibrating cigarette.
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