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.