FOR ERNST THAELMANN
41
through endless invincible hours
like
fate
the hammer and hammer of
hammer and · hammer of
millions who mine
as they state
the steel-strict slogan the hate
of the proletariat
Thaelmann is ours
As
they go as they go
precious with parasite friends
coutning their dividends
through the hollow-eyed countryside
where hunger strangles and rends
let them know
how the chanting express where
they ride
the smoke-scrawled banner of sky
cry,
how each wheel
thunders metrically out on the steel
what the starving the tortured feel
-let them crumple their hands like
llowers–
Thaelmann ts ours
III.
Comrades,
a wind now a wind
huge
a tornado
rocking the socketed stars
transforming earth
We shall win Thaelmann like a
battle
riving
driving before
the choking broken refuse of a
world
the hideous ideologies of despair
throttling the screamed lie
in your throat
bourgeoisie
We shall win Thaelmann like a
battle
a wind
!
a wind
pointed with steel
with steel
the steel of Lenin
mounting
mounting
up from the tunnelling mine
echoing the twisted cries of the
doomed
weaving to fury
the silent accusation of the dead
and the unspeakable waiting agony
of the women
gathering power
We shall win Thaelmann like a
battle
now the conveyor-belt
lined by exhausted hands
and the drained heaviness of our eyes
now the picket-line
now the advancing gas-cloud
fired by police
now the demonstrations
now the hunger-march
now the barricades
up UP
to the exact skyscraper nuzzling the
blue
to the showered leaflets
and the exploding slogan shouted
through space
upward to the plane
that with gold wings writes the sky
finally to the insurection and to
Soviet Power
comrades a wind now a wind
the wind of revolution
We shall win Tlzaelmann like a
battle
RICHAIID GooDMAN
