SADLY THEY PERISH
fascism yawns,
black pit of death.
objectivists stuff cotton into ears,
disdain the clear emphatic voices of revolt
yet seem to hear, though dimly to be sure,
the ancient rocking-chairs of ease
creak absent-minded praise ...
and pansy poets bow, and sway,
launch battleships and yachts of plutes
with girlish giggles and champagne salutes;
or else (thank-god) remember yesterdays,
fingering the junk of medals on their breasts ..
sadly they perish, each by each,
whispering madness, they disappear
into the isolate doom of dreams,
into the cold gray vaults of dust.
and who will gather the darlings up,
arrange them in anthologies?
what mussolini-horse will drop
bouquets upon their mouldering graves?
5 years: the ivory towers crack I
cockroaches scuttle after crumbs .
the harried line of workers holds;
repulsed , returns to the attack!
in trenches, behind the barricades,
electric eyes pierce walls of fog ..
in arid wastes of no-man's land
white grubs squirm into purple space.
HERMAN SPECTOR
31
