The Death of Leon Trotsky
Paul Goodman
'1.
What burnt? A meteor blinding close?
Or a premonitory comet
that will in fifty years return and burn?
Or an artificial light i' the house!
The strangest mourning-song of a dead hero
with an ambiguous heart I begin:
Trotsky to the death he fiercely hated
was given struggling still;
meantime we are suspicious, tentativ.ely
excited weigh the evidence,
deeply stirred on one hypothesis.
2.
In France, in Norway, in a duel world-wide,
in
mighty States by wit and private arms
he warded off the murder day by day.
This was a hunt under peculiar rules:
a solitary fugitive most often
cannot remain alive.
In such an article, in such a speech
is heard the rhythms and the outcries
expressing being at bay.
The initiative is the assassin's
the initiative is always the assassin's
every night and day the initiative is the assassin's.
