8. Losers

IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah

I would stop there and sit for awhile;

Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark

And came out alive after all.

If I pass the burial spot of Nero

I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!”—

I who have fiddled in a world on fire,

I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.

I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too.

I want to shake his ghost-hand and say,

“Neither of us died very early, did we?”

And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar—

When I arrive there I shall tell the wind:

“You ate grass; I have eaten crow—

Who is better off now or next year?”

Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James,

There too I could sit down and stop for awhile.

I think I could tell their headstones:

“God, let me remember all good losers.”

I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads

In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods,

Walking into the drumfires, calling his men,

“Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?”