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Collected Poems

Page 6

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And murder can stamp a smile

On the vacant face of the fool,

The sinister grin of Africa's idiot-kings

Who oversee in obscene palaces of gold

The butchery of their own people.

Neto, I sing your passing, I,

Timid requisitioner of your vast

Armory's most congenial supply.

What shall I sing? A dirge answering

The gloom? No, I will sing tearful songs

Of joy; I will celebrate

The Man who rode a trinity

Of awesome fates to the cause

Of our trampled race!

Thou Healer, Soldier, and Poet!

Poems About War

The First Shot

That lone rifle-shot anonymous

in the dark striding chest-high

through a nervous suburb at the break

of our season of thunders will yet

steep its flight and lodge

more firmly than the greater noises

ahead in the forehead of memory.

A Mother in a Refugee Camp

No Madonna and Child could touch

Her tenderness for a son

She soon would have to forget….

The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,

Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs



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