The Hangman's 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.