A Song for the Spanish Anarchists

The golden lemon is not made

but grows on a green tree:

A strong man and his crystal eyes

is a man born free.

The oxen pass under the yoke

and the blind are led at will:

But a man born free has a path of his own

and a house on the hill.

To Maria Spiridonova

                       















 On her deliverance from prison

O thou who art so frail and pure and white
like the primsnows that fecundate thy sod,
thou who hast seen the shadowed cross of God
bow past thy cell in thy remorseless night.

O man-sent Maid to conquer hell, o rod
of burning steel that flowered into light,
Maria, thou shalt see the holiest sight
since woman saw her first child in her blood.

To us all towns are one

To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. 
Death's no new thing; nor do our bosoms thrill
When Joyous life seems like a luscious draught. 
When grieved, we patient suffer; for, we deem
This much - praised life of ours a fragile raft 
Borne down the waters of some mountain stream

Anarchy

Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,

Thou art the grisly terror of our age.

"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,

"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."

O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven

The truth that lies behind a word to find,

To them the word's right meaning was not given.

They shall continue blind among the blind.

The Prisoner

`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that bound you?'

`It was my master,' said the prisoner. `I thought I could outdo

everybody in the world in wealth and power, and I amassed in

my own treasure-house the money due to my king. When sleep

overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my lord, and on

waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'

`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that wrought this unbreakable

chain?'

Talking of Power and Love

Between all my torments between death and self

Between my despair and the reason for living

There is injustice and this evil of men

That I cannot accept there is my anger

There are the blood-coloured fighters of Spain

There are the sky-coloured fighters of Greece

The bread the blood the sky and the right to hope

For all the innocents who hate evil

I Am There

I come from there and remember,

I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother

and a house with many windows,

I have brothers, friends and a prison.

I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away.

I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass.

I have a moon past the peak of words.

I have the godsent food of birds and an olive tree beyond the ken of time.

Ethics for Everyman

Throwing a bomb is bad,
Dropping a bomb is good;
Terror, no need to add,
Depends on who's wearing the hood.

Kangaroo courts are wrong.
Specialist courts are right;

Discipline by the strong
Is fair if your collar is white.

Purity

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing

that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts,

knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of

reason in my mind.

My song

This song of mine will wind its music around you,

my child, like the fond arms of love.

The song of mine will touch your forehead

like a kiss of blessing.

When you are alone it will sit by your side and

whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd

it will fence you about with aloofness.

The Dream

I have a dream

To fill the golden sheath

          of a remembered day. 
     

Air      

Heavy and massed and blue

          as the vapor of opium …           

Domes

Fired in sulphurous mist …       

Be brave

Arouse, ye men of brain and brawn,

    Unnumbered hosts that toil;

Assert your manhood, break your chains:

    Reclaim your own fair soil!

Too long beneath oppression's lash

    Ye've slaved for robber knaves;

And gave your all to Church and State,

    Contented to be slaves.

The day had come, your night is done,

    If you but act as men.

Be bold, be brave - the world is yours,

    March on and take it, then!

    But no, you hesitate - and why?

    Oh slaves! Why fear to die?

On! Do and dare! Be brave! Be free!

A Legend

A knave and a fool on an island were cast;

Their ship had gone down in the hurricane's blast.

On the island they met, while hungry and wet,

A wise man who aid to them gave;

They were given a home, with the freedom to roam,

Bounded by naught but the wave.

The fool, though demented, was easily contented

To live in this beautiful land:

But the knave was a schemer (there's plenty lots meaner);

He thought out a wonderful plan.

Stillborn parable

The beetle who loves to quarry dung

and work on filth like a goldsmith

doesn’t want to put up with the mint.

Nor will any of you accept my truth.

And you don’t even know your refusal strangles your eyes

and cuts off all the air

you had coming.

Raúl Carballeira

Raúl Carballeira (February 28, 1918 — June 26, 1948)

Bursts of shrapnel

mowed down your young body.

But you still had a gasp of breath,

a gasp of breath and a bullet;

and your mind, like a rapid steed,

galloping in the air,

on a hot June afternoon,

exploded under your own impact.

Burial of the trouble-maker in a zinc coffin

Here in this zinc box

lies a dead person

or his legs and his head

or even less of him

or nothing, for he was

a trouble-maker.

The Agnostic

Says the Agnostic: "It may be so

Across the sky God sets his bow

Of promise, and each day and night

Gems the Universe with light.

But yet the angel of the darker gloom

Has cast the shadow of a deeper doom

Athwart the human heart and brain,

Whose name is Death, pale priest of pain.

The Interrogation of the Good

Step forward: we hear

That you are a good man.

You cannot be bought, but the lightning

Which strikes the house, also

Cannot be bought.

You hold to what you said.

But what did you say?

You are honest, you say your opinion.

Which opinion?

You are brave.

Against whom?

You are wise.

For whom?

To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire

Courage yet, my brother or my sister!

Keep on—Liberty is to be subserv’d whatever occurs;

That is nothing that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures,

Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,

Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,

Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,

Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

Uninterrupted Poetry

From the sea to the source

From mountain to plain

Runs the phantom of life

The foul shadow of death 
But between us

A dawn of ardent flesh is born

And exact good

that sets the earth in order

We advance with calm step

And nature salutes us

Consternados, rabiosos

Vámonos,
derrotando afrentas.

Ernesto "CHE" Guevara

  

Así estamos

consternados

rabiosos

aunque esta muerte sea

uno de los absurdos previsibles

da vergüenza mirar

los cuadros

los sillones

las alfombras

sacar una botella del refrigerador

teclear las tres letras mundiales de tu nombre

en la rígida máquina

que nunca

nuca estuvo

con la cinta tan pálida

If I were another

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!

Call To Account!

The drum of war thunders and thunders.

It calls: thrust iron into the living.

From every country

slave after slave

are thrown onto bayonet steel.

For the sake of what?

The earth shivers

hungry

and stripped.

Aspiration

The sweetness of poverty like this…

To lose everything yours, even the egoism of being,

So poor that you can only belong to the crowd…

I gave away everything mine, I spent all my being,

And I possess only what in me is common to all..

The sweetness of poverty like this…

I am not lonely any more, I am dissolved among equal men!

I have walked. Long my way

The emphatic mark of my steps

Remained on ground wet with morning dew.

میں خواہش

I desire

Completion of your Love is what I desire

Look at my sincerity what little I desire

It may be oppression or the promise of

unveiling

Something testing my perseverance I desire

May the pious be happy with this Paradise

Only to see your Countenance I desire

Though I am but a tiny little heart I am so

bold

انسان

Man

Nature has played a strange and wanton

joke—

Making man a seeker of secrets,

But hiding the secrets from his view!

The urge for knowledge gives him no rest,

But the secret of life remains undiscovered.

Wonder is at the beginning and the end—

What else is there in this house of mirrors?

I am the people, the mob

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and

     clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me

     and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons

     and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.

     Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out

     and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes

     me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.  

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,  

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;  

Though they go mad they shall be sane,  

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;  

Though lovers be lost love shall not;  

And death shall have no dominion.

Haymarket: May Day, 1939

August Spies: You may strangle this voice, but there will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.

Albert Parsons: O men of America, let the voice of the people be heard!

Still bright, and searing ignorance and fear,

This stronger beacon that you tended burns

And on this day of each advancing year

The memory of that first May First

        returns.

Histrionics

--Albert Parsons

went to his death

singing Annie Laurie;

didn't another have

a rose in his coat--

or was it a pink--

dramatizing himself--

Reveille

Come forth, you workers!

Let the fires go cold

Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs

Let the iron run wild

Like a red bramble on the floors

Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine

And the shrapnel lying on the wharves

Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom

Come,

With your ashen lives,

Your lives like dust in your hands.

Two Religions

When revolution is outlined on the horizon

the old cauldron of religions gets stirred up.

In normal times

religion meant going to Mass

paying tithes for God's house

baptizing children

and confessing sins to keep one's account in order.

When revolution is outlined on the horizon

churches remember the masses

and come down from the clouds and mysteries

and Sunday tranquility.

To Those Born Later

I

Truly, I live in dark times!

The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead

Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs

Has simply not yet had

The terrible news.

What kind of times are they, when

A talk about trees is almost a crime

Because it implies silence about so many horrors?

That man there calmly crossing the street

Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends

Who are in need?

I Wanted

I wanted to talk about life of all its melodious

corners I want to gather in a river of words

the dreams and the names what is left unsaid

in the newspapers the pains of the solitary

surprised in the nooks of the rain

rescue the leafless parabolas of lovers and give them to you

laid before the games played by a child

elaborating his sweet daily destruction

I wanted to pronounce the syllables of the people

the sounds of its grief