The evening and the day wore on,
Our lives were full of bother.
We posted when we had the time,
To our ever-bouyant Mother.
It was BS here, and BS there,
We'd not give up the ghost.
For we knew that somewhere down the road
Lay the Thirteen Thousandth Post.

Like the Grail of old, that number bold
Drew all our fevered dreaming
And if we let it fall to some drive-by cad,
We'd all be in for reaming.
We could hear the cheers and the bold halloos,
And the happy honoring toasts,
So we took the time to step once more
Toward the Thirteen Thousandth Post.

And if men died in far off lands,
And honor died betrayed,
And if we marched like Moses' band
Back into lives as slaves,
If virtue failed, and courage quailed,
And reason left for the coast,
Why, it's nothin' to us -- why raise a fuss?
Where's that Thirteen Thousandth Post?

Ephraim Symbolist, Jr.
Songs from an Empty Heart
Nihilist Pocket Books Press,
Greenwich Village, New York, 1947