60
PARTISAN REVIEW
And the murder
I am too angry to bother with this poem
About the beauty of the world
Who cares a damn about that now
THE BATILE OF HASEN
Stirred ... the fur·toothed graves
Of young boys . . . a thousand slain
In the time it would take to do love
With a pretty girl
Or think of a new God. The leagues
Of carrying the slaughter has ..
!
these fallen
Meanly touch death, their dying
Is such a used thing . . . 0 the moonplains
Of wandering their terrible hour chooses.... This
Is a man. You are not to kill him.
This is a man. He has a poor time in the world.
You are not to kill him.
This is a man. There is a purpose in his being here.
You are not to kill him.
Eyes of the wounded ... the shining tree
Rooted up by a monster. Shall they manage
To lie here in the rain? What do they cross to
In the smoke of so much terror?
This is a man. You are not to kill him.
John Frederick Nims
POOLROOM
When children's day is over and nurses lay
Their little kelsons in a feathery port,
With chromium tooth and fluorine-scarlet lip
Grins open now the emporium of sport.
Carefree in earnest, sombre women bowl,
And highschool fry are loud in many a shoal.
Through blue narcotic fog, tables of game
