The Ghetto, And Other Poems Part 6

Men mannered to large undertakings, Knowing force as a brother And power as something to play with, Seeing blood as a slip of the iron, To be wiped from the tools Lest they rust.

But what if they stood aside, Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?

What of the flamboyant cities And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind...

And the armies halted...

And the train mid-way on the mountain And idle men chaffing across the trenches...

And the cursing and lamentation And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world?

What if they stayed apart, Inscrutably smiling, Leaving the ground enc.u.mbered with dead wire And the sea to row-boats And the lands marooned-- Till Time should like a paralytic sit, A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting?

FUEL

What of the silence of the keys And silvery hands? The iron sings...

Though bows lie broken on the strings, The fly-wheels turn eternally...

Bring fuel--drive the fires high...

Throw all this artist-lumber in And foolish dreams of making things...

(Ten million men are called to die.)

As for the common men apart, Who sweat to keep their common breath, And have no hour for books or art-- What dreams have these to hide from death!

A TOAST

Not your martyrs anointed of heaven-- The ages are red where they trod-- But the Hunted--the world's bitter leaven-- Who smote at your imbecile G.o.d--

A being to pander and fawn to, To propitiate, flatter and dread As a thing that your souls are in p.a.w.n to, A Dealer who traffics the dead;

A Trader with greed never sated, Who barters the souls in his snares, That were trapped in the l.u.s.ts he created, For incense and ma.s.ses and prayers--

They are crushed in the coils of your halters; 'Twere well--by the creeds ye have nursed-- That ye send up a cry from your altars, A ma.s.s for the Martyrs Accursed;

A pa.s.sionate prayer from reprieval For the Brotherhood not understood-- For the Heroes who died for the evil, Believing the evil was good.

To the Breakers, the Bold, the Despoilers, Who dreamed of a world over-thrown...

They who died for the millions of toilers-- Few--fronting the nations alone!

--To the Outlawed of men and the Branded, Whether hated or hating they fell-- I pledge the devoted, red-handed, Unfaltering Heroes of h.e.l.l!

ACCIDENTALS

"THE EVERLASTING RETURN"

It is dark... so dark, I remember the sun on Chios...

It is still... so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean...

Ten times we had watched the moon Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters And round into a full maternity...

For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh Save the man flesh on either hand That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.

The Athenian boy sat on my left...

His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine...

And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian, Grinning Phildar With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth.

Many a whip had coiled about him And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels, And his skin was red and tough as a bull's hide cured in the sun.

He did not sing like the other slaves, But when a big wind came up he screamed with it.

And always he looked out to sea, Save when he tore at his fish ends Or spat across me at the Greek boy, whose mouth was red and apart like an opened fruit.

We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern.

She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea.

All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears, And when night came on And little naked stars dabbled in the water And half the crouching moon Slid over the silver belly of the sea thick-scaled with light, We heard them singing at their oars...

We who had no breath for song.

There was no sound in our boat Save the clingle of wrist chains And the sobbing of the young Greek.

I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth, tasting salt of the sea...

I cursed him that his oar kept ill time...

When he looked at me I cursed him again, That his eyes were soft as a woman's.

How long... since their last sh.e.l.l gouged our batteries?

How long... since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern?

(It was the d.a.m.ned green moon that nosed us out...

The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame...)

They loosed each man's right hand As the galley spent on our decks...

And amazed and bloodied we reared half up And fought askew with the left hand shackled...

But a zigzag fire leapt in our sockets And knotted our thews like string...

Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten...

How long... since our gauges fell And the sea shoved us under?

It is dark... so dark...

Darkness presses hairy-hot Where three make crowded company...

And the rank steel smells....

It is still... so still...

I seem to hear the wind On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above...

It was still... so still... we three that were left alive Stared in each other's faces...

But three make bitter company at one man's bread...

And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon's edge in the water.

One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth...

And one s.h.i.+vered and whined like a gull as the waves pawed us over...

But one struck with his hate in his hand...

After that I remember Only the dead men's oars that flapped in the sea...

The dead men's oars that rattled and clicked like idiots' tongues.

It is still... so still, with the jargon of engines quiet.

We three awaiting the crunch of the sea Reach our hands in the dark and touch each other's faces...

We three sheathing hate in our hearts...

But when hate shall have made its circuit, Our bones will be loving company Here in the sea's den...

And one whimpers and cries on his G.o.d And one sits sullenly But both draw away from me...