And all that is this day. . . <br />The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. .. <br /> <br />Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his <br />wife... <br />Anger won't help. I was born angry. Angry that my father was <br />being burnt alive in the mills; Angry that none of us knew <br />anything but filth, and poverty. Angry because I was that very <br />one somebody was supposed To be fighting for <br />Turn him over; take a good look at his face... <br />Somebody is going to see that face for a long time. <br />I wash his hands that in the brightness they will shine. <br />We have a parent called the earth. <br />To be these buds and trees; this tameless bird Within the <br />ground; this season's act upon the fields of Man. <br />To be equal to the littlest thing alive, <br />While all the swarming stars move silent through The merest <br />flower <br />. .. but the fog of guns. <br />The face with all the draining future left blank. . . Those smug <br />saints, whether of church or Stalin, Can get off the back of <br />my people, and stay off. Somebody is supposed to be fighting <br />for somebody. . . And Lenin is terribly silent, terribly silent <br />and dead.<br /><br />Kenneth Patchen<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hangman-s-great-hands/
