The Hangmans Great Hands

And all that is this day. . .
The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. ..
Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his
wife…
Anger won't help.

I was born angry.

Angry that my father was
being burnt alive in the mills;

Angry that none of us knew
anything but filth, and poverty.

Angry because I was that very
one somebody was supposed To be fighting for
Turn him over; take a good look at his face…
Somebody is going to see that face for a long time.
I wash his hands that in the brightness they will shine.
We have a parent called the earth.
To be these buds and trees; this tameless bird Within the
ground; this season's act upon the fields of Man.
To be equal to the littlest thing alive,
While all the swarming stars move silent through The merest
flower
. .. but the fog of guns.
The face with all the draining future left blank. . .

Those smug
saints, whether of church or Stalin,

Can get off the back of
my people, and stay off.

Somebody is supposed to be fighting
for somebody. . .

And Lenin is terribly silent, terribly silent
and dead.