In these hands, the cities: in my weather, the armies
Of better things than die
To the scaly music of war.
The different men, who are dead
Had cunning : they sought green lives
In a world blacker than your world :
But you have nourished the taste of sickness
Until all ohter tastes are dull in your mouths :
It is only we who stand outside the steaming tents
Of hypocrisy and murder
Who are “sick” —
This is the health you want.
Yours is the health of the pig which roots up
The vines that would give him food :
Ours is the sickness of the deer which is shot
Because it is the activity of hunters to shoot him.
In your hands, the cities : in my world, the marching
Of nobler feet than walk down a road
Deep with corpses of every sane and beautiful thing.
Kenneth Patchen
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs