John Ashbery - Our Youth lyrics

Of bricks... Who built it? Like some crazy balloon When love leans on us Its nights... The velvety pavement sticks to our feet. The dead puppies turn us back on love. Where we are. Sometimes The brick arches led to a room like a bubble, that broke when you entered it And sometimes to a fallen leaf. We got crazy with emotion, showing how much we knew The Arabs took us. We knew The dead horses. We were discovering coffee, How it is to be drunk hot, with bare feet In Canada. And the immortal music of Chopin Which we had been discovering for several months Since we were fourteen years old. And coffee grounds, And the wonder of hands, and the wonder of the day When the child discovers her first dead hand. Do you know it? Hasn't she Observed you too? Haven't you been observed to her? My, haven't the flowers been? Is the evil In't? What window? What did you say there? Heh? Eh? Our youth is dead. From the minute we discover it with eyes closed Advancing into mountain light Ouch... You will never have that young boy, That boy with the monocle Could have been your father He is pa**ing by. No, that other one, Upstairs. He is the one who wanted to see you. He is dead. Green and yellow handkerchiefs cover him. Perhaps he will never rot, I see That my clothes are dry. I will go. The naked girl crosses the street. Blue hampers... Explosions, Ice... The ridiculous Vases of porphyry. All that our youth Can't use, that it was created for. It's true we have not avoided our destiny By weeding out the old people. Our faces have filled with smoke. We escape Down the cloud ladder, but the problem has not been solved.