6/20/2014

From Autumn Journal - Louis MacNeice

International betrayals, public murder,
The devil quoting scripture, the traitor, the coward, the thug
Eating dinner in the name of peace and progress,
The doped public sucking a dry dug;
Official recognition of rape, revival of the ghetto
And free speech gagged and free
Energy scapped and dropped like surplus herring 

Back into the barren sea;
Brains and beauty festering in exile,
The shadow of bars
Falling across each page, each field, each raddled sunset,
The alien lawn and the pool of nenuphars;
And hordes of homeless poor running the gauntlet
In hostile city streets of white and violet lamps
Whose flight is without a terminus but better
Than the repose of concentration camps.

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