STARK WINTER
In the summer
I will sing of flowers
And fling pretty phrases
At the hearts
Of fair women.

I will image palaces of hope
And social structures
Where human beings
Might live and strive
Without hate.

In the summer
When the pulse throbs
Atune with earth's
Creative impulse.
In the winter
As thru a lense I see
Life's barbarities and superstitions
Focalized.

I see broken lives,
Starving children,
Mortgaged homes;
Love lost or defiled
For profit or for bread;
Power's cruelty to the weak.

I long for the summer
Of roses and hope,
But may the winter of reality
Ever stir me to act.
For only action
Brings the Ideal.


WHO ARE THE STRONG?

Is it Great to mulct the little,
Or Fine to cheat the poor?
Do the Strong oppress the lowly,
Wring taxes from the landless?

Does Strength beat cripples,
Or Courage starve women?
Is it Masterful to strike the blind,
Or crush a weakling?

Such is christian valor —
To hang the daring bandit,
Enrich and honor
The craven exploiter!

We cripple the weak,
Trample the meek,
Despoil the ignorant
Starve the infant at birth.

Even charity is graft.
And we boast
Of Strength and Courage!
Who are the Strong?

 
BE TRUTHFUL

Lie to others if you must —
To the jealous wife,
The importune creditor.

It will save you
Much trouble
If you don't.

But — if you must —
Lie to your tradesmen
And your mistress —

Sell goods by lying,
Gain what you will
By falsehood —

So wages the world.
Or appears to.
But —

Tell yourself the truth.
"I am a knave and a liar,"
Say often.

Deceive others if you must,
Tho courage finds it seldom necessary —
But —

"I am a liar and a knave"
Say to yourself
Frequently.

It is better not to lie
Very much. But —
Tell yourself the truth!

No one is wholly
Truthful, in christendom —
But don't lie to yourself.

"I am a scoundrel" —
Say it often in secret.
You are!

Who is not in christendom?
Don't lie
To yourself.



BUSINESS

I am a business man.
I must cheat, haggle, exploit.
Ninety-five per cent of us fail
Because we cannot kill
All our human qualities
And remain to the end tricksters and brutes.

I am a business man.
In my heart I loathe it.
Deep within me was a hunger
For life and love and friendship
That I have almost strangled.

I am a business man.
Who has Succeeded!
After long years of bitter strife
And preying on the weak
I have won these Ashes.






CULTURE

I am tired of art and beauty
And all their tinsel twaddle;
I am tired of logic and philosophy
And all their endless chatter;
I am heart-sick and soul-tired
Of Culture —
While a million children starve!


BOTTOM FACTS

They seize the earth —
  its ore, coal, oil, and
  timber, hold the larger
  part idle and sell the
  product for what they
  please: that's the bottom
  fact of High Prices.

They seize the earth —
  its unused fertile acres,
  and hold them out of use,
  which crowds the city
  with workers who must
  bid against each other for
  jobs: that's the bottom
  fact of Low Wages.


I AM FREE

I am free
To choose, sometimes,
Which master of the earth
I may elect to serve.

I am free
To sell myself, if I can find a buyer,
For enough to feed
And clothe myself.

I am free
To beg, or steal, if I can,
Or starve —
In a land glutted with wealth.

I am free
To pinch and screw and save
And give the best energies of my life
Merely to gain a roof.

I am free
To wander homeless
Over twenty-three hundred million acres mostly vacant, unused,
In search of a job.

I am free
To push out a worker
And take a job
From one whose need may be greater than mine.

I am free
To be a prostitute, beggar, thief,
Or to tramp with the disemployed.



PREPAREDNESS

Thieves go well armed.
Assassins, detectives
Manhunters
Must always be prepared
Against invasion —
A troublesome necessity
Of their calling.

Houses that shelter
Stolen goods,
Houses that sell
Woman's bodies,
Homes of the insane,
Jails and penitentiaries
Need guns, bars, and guards
Violence always threatens.

Homes of billionaires
Where are gathered
In monstrous superfluity
Wealth rended from
Countless broken lives
And homeless paupers —
Need a vast army
To protect them.

Banks that hoard
Working capital
From tradesmen
Until their necessities
Wring blood usury
Need more than time locks
And steel vaults
To save them.

Titles to idle acres,
Mortgages on homes,
The penal code,
Privileges and monopolies,
Sweatshops,
Slums
Gallows —
Need much "preparedness."

The house of exploitation
Is safeguarded
By murder.
Despoliation fattens
On the war psychology.
Chains rattle
Above the roar
Of death machinery.


THREE BLOOD BROTHERS
I
I am Palaver —
Of many aliases:
Security of the State,
National Honor,
Civilization, Humanity —
The spoken or written
Word, to which
The Individual
Is forever sacrificed
By Greed.
I am Cant the hypocrite,
Loved and feared
By ignorance

II
I am Patriotism —
Provincial and bigoted;
Hating all but my own,
Ready to persecute
And murder
For a word or a look
Alien to my understanding.
I am the little heart
And the narrow brain.
I am ignorance, creed,
And the church.
I am he who kills
And dies for Greed.

III
I am Profit —
The modern Moloch,
The western Juggernaut,
The only essential Individualist
The world has ever known.
For me all things exist
And all creatures.
On my altars
Are spread
The life of childhood,
The heart of manhood,
The souls of women.





WE'RE GOING TO HANG A BOY IN CALIFORNIA

We're going to hang a boy —
  Twelve men, a regular physician, a schooled jurist, and a cityfull of righteous people have condemned — a boy of eighteen.
  Whom the wisest of earth, its saviors, prophets, and sages, have refrained from judging; whom the Central Figure of the era (in whose name the nations are filled with temples) admonished the world to "Judge Not" — twelve men, a regular physician, a schooled jurist, and a cityfull of righteous people have not only judged but condemned — a boy of eighteen.

We're going to hang a boy —
  Not in passion's blinding mists, or youth's high fever that riots thru distended veins and over-throws the inner God.
  Not in lightning spur to lust of blood — the quick flowering of an atavistic germ from cave and forest.
  Not for a sudden clot that bursts a tiny vein and floods a lobe and clouds the mental vision.
  Not for a flashing impact on a nerve that reaches from the spleen and dethrones the clay's master.

We're going to hang a boy —
  To uphold the majesty of the law, maintain the dignity of the State — a boy of eighteen — to prove that California is an order-loving commonwealth.
  Three million people against a boy of eighteen. We will hang him to prove our courage, our virtue, and our civilization.
  And the church of Jesus Christ is approvingly silent.

We're going to hang a boy —
  A jury, a doctor, and a "Daniel come to judgment" have condemned a boy — read his heart, searched his soul, pierced the secret chambers of his mind, laid bare the human ego, and found it all bad!
  A jury, a doctor of physics, and a Daniel, have measured the surging impulses of hot youth, balanced the force of impact and impulsion, read the record of the motor brain areas —
  And found the boy sane and bad — quite sane and all bad, and have ordered him hanged.

We're going to hang a boy —
  We hope. The sentence may not stand — ah, well, we have had our orgie.
  We have gloated at the spectacle in court.
  The mother moaned, the sister screamed, the boy was bold — then cowed by the brave and manly judge, he trembled, hid his face in his hands, as the fatal words of the learned judge fell — manly, learned, righteous judge — (I'd rather be a wolf.)
  Tho the hangman be cheated, we have had our orgie.
  We have heard the mother moan, the sister scream, and seen the boy tremble!

We're going to hang a boy —
  A bad boy. Why is he bad, because he murdered? Then is he sane because he murdered? Or did he murder because he was sane?
  Did the doctor measure the boy's sanity by his own? Would the doctor do murder? Is it only fear of hanging that keeps the doctor from murdering? Then the boy were a braver soul. If the doctor will consider why he would not murder, he will reach a truer measure of the boy's sanity.
  If the doctor has a better test of sanity than murder is, he is wiser than God.

We're going to hang a boy —
  Unless the supreme court intervenes — or the governor.
  Why are we going to hang the boy? To show that murder is wrong? — but we are going to murder him.  Murder means killing. We are going to kill the boy — we hope —
  We kill to show that killing is wrong. We are not only a brave people — three million against one boy; we are also a sensible, rational, intelligent people.
  If it is wrong to kill, why do we kill?

We're going to hang a boy —
  Eighteen years from God. Take him back, God, he's bad, all bad, not fit to live with the three million inhabitants of California.
  Murder is right; we are going to murder a boy.
  It's the boy that's bad, not murder.
  Why is the boy bad? because he is sane; if he were not sane he would not be bad and we would not hang him.
  Take him back, God — we reject him; he's all bad — a bad boy not fit to live with us.

We're going to hang a boy —
  Why are we going to hang him; because in a hot flash he did murder? O, no; we are going to murder him — in cold blood — deliberately.
  Because he is sane? Many are sane and do murder and are not hanged — those who murder scores for profit, in a cheaply protected mine drift, or because life-boats are expensive.
  Because he is bad? Many bad people are not hanged. Because he is bad, sane, and a murderer? Many have been all these and were not hanged.
  Why were they not hanged? Because they were very Wealthy!

We're going to hang a boy —
  Because he is poor! His people haven't much money.
  If this bad, sane boy were the child of multi-millionaires do you think he would have been sentenced to hang?
  If you do you are very guileless.
  If the boy's father were very rich he could have engaged the services of a dozen eminent psychiatrists who would have testified (truthfully) that the boy was insane.
  We are going to hang the boy because he is Poor!



WHERE ARE THE WOMEN OF CALIFORNIA

Where are the women of California —
  The wise matrons, the honored sisters, the virtuous wives, and the enlightened spinsters
  Who gained the ballot to uplift society?
  Where are the women milder and truer than men, of deeper impulse and wider sympathy?
  Where are the enfranchised women, while the gallows is building
  On which to hang a boy?

Where are the women of California —
  More humane and benign than men, with tendered sensibilities and nobler purpose to humanize society, soften its barbarous customs and replace its ancient cruelties with decenter statutes than those of fang and claw?
  Where is the gentler sex with purer love and higher instincts to lead mankind from savage passions and primitive blood-lust?
  Doesn't it heal the dull stroke of the hammer in the old lumber room of San Quentin?

Where are the women of California —
  With the mother hunger for every mother's son in distress and hate for none —
  Who value the life of youth more than the jungle law of revenge?
  Where are the mothers whose ways are kinder and wiser than those of the hangman?
  Where is the noble motherhood, the gentle sisterhood, the precious maternal instinct —
  Where do they hide that they cannot hear the building of the gallows on which two sons of mothers are to be hanged?
  One of twenty-three and one of eighteen?
  Where are the million mothers of California?

Where are the women of California —
  Who will not hypocritically hide their lust of revenge
  By fatuously asking, What else can we do with a boy who kills another?
  Where are the women whose love for the unslain, and care for those who have not killed, is stronger than their hate of a mentally weak boy?
  Where are the wise women of impersonal view who will discourage murder by suppressing the state's example of murder?
Where are the women who loathe murder more than the blind victims thereof?

Where are the women of California —
  Whose finer feminine intuitions have raised them above the brute instincts of men?
  Where are the women who will bring moral vigor to civilization and lure us away from the fear and hate of cave days —
  The women less crude and cruel than the shrinking low-browed males of California who have no shame to hang a boy?
  Where are the women, better than men, to save a boy from the gallows?

Where are the women of California —
  Whose sympathies are wider than their skirts —
  Their mentalities stronger than their love of tango?
  Where are the women, the voting women, with mind and heart reaching beyond the boundary each of her own little nest?
  A hundred real women could wipe the stigma of the public hangman off the seal of the state.
  Where are the women of California!



TWO IN A MILLION

Braver than soldiers stalking to kill —
Than heroes their own lives who take or give.
True as who live when death were easier.
Rash as those splendid gamblers
Throwing dice with the unknown
For gain of knowledge.
Bold as seekers for the Pole
Or the Congo's source — as those
Who dare the skiey whirlpools.

These play for gain that is dross
To the mother's gain
Who pleads for the life of the boy
That slew her own.
These play for honors, excitement,
For gold. or for peace;
But what the widow's gain
Pleading for the life that
Killed her children's father?

What have they braved?
The jeers of a hate-ridden world,
Contempt of the shallow and emotional
Alien to deep sympathy —
The sneers of the modern jungle
Whose denizens still proudly share
The passions and impulses
Of the wasp and the wolf.

What have they dared?
To do what the pious preach
And never practise; to be
What sages admonish all to be
And few are; not to seek revenge.
They have honored their dear dead
By love complete
That leaves no room for hate.

What is their courage?
To brave the contumely of lawyers
And judges —
The scorn of the self-righteous,
The abuse of that poverty-fear
Whose craven imbecility
Keeps the hangman's law
On the statutes of California.

They have braved public opprobrium
And the ridicule of the smug.
From a thousand pulpits
They will be rated "sentimental."
They have braved
The orthodox church
And the harlot press.

Their gain — if but the hope of gain
Can spur the heart and head
To act in concert — Their gain?
Who understand alone may know.
What light is to darkness,
And love is to hate,
Such is their gain.

Daughters of the Newer Eve!
Yours the light what time Earth's gloom shall cleave?
Temptresses with riper fruit!
Yours the lure of men bold-hearted
In the long pursuit.

Fair! ah, sisters fair!
'Tis men, not brutes,
Your "sacrosanct cajoleries" ensnare.
Nor man nor Superman
Might live to grieve
His "soul's enmeshment in your hair."



ONLY THE POOR
Only the poor we hang —
Never the rich!
Not all the poor we hang —
But none of the rich!

Not for murder we hang —
And only the poor!
Many slay and are free,
But not the poor!

To kill for profit,
Betray and debauch,
Are common things —
For the rich!

The hangman guards
The loot of Privilege!
We hang only the poor —
Never the rich!


WE LOVE MURDER

We love murder —
And hate the man.
We gloat on the crime
And loathe the man.

Our venom
We exhaust on the man —
And wallow exultant
In the shocking crime.

Our jaded appetites
Morbidly revel in the details
Of the murder —
And shrink from the man.

By press, code, gallows
We foster crime —
And hate men.
We love murder.



IF HE WERE YOURS

Judge, if he were your boy,
Would you hang him?
"The law" is two words — nothing more.
Those two words — of hate and revenge —
Are impotent without your interpretation.
You speak the word of death!

Governor, if he were your boy
You would not sign that death warrant.
If he were the son of your old friend,
The son of your political manager,
The son of the woman you loved —
You would not sign the death warrant.

Warden, if he were your son,
Would you hang him?
No; it is not "the law" that hangs him.
Only human beings can build a gallows,
March a boy or a man on it,
And spring the trap that hurls him Out.


IF WE HATED MURDER

If we hated murder —
We would cease to encourage it;
Cease to feed it on Poverty, Hate, Fear;
Cease to breed it by gruesome spectacles
And inculcate it
By the subtle force of suggestion.

If we intelligently discouraged murder —
Judges, detectives, sheriffs, keepers, lawyers
Would lose their jobs, dignities, salaries.
In every population are many,
Whose incomes depending on crime,
Are not interested to lessen murder.

If we hated murder —
And thought hanging would lessen it
We would hang even the rich.  Once
We hanged a man who had $75,000 —
But not until the last penny of it
Was gone for legal fees and expenses!


YOUR BROTHER

If he were your brother
You'd go far
And do much
To cheat the gallows!

If he were your brother,
Your neighbor, you kin,
Or your friend —
Would you cry "Hang him"?

If he were your brother,
Your son, your father,
Your husband, or lover,
You would plead for his life!

If he were your brother,
You would raise heaven
And earth to save him
From the gallows!

He is
Your brother!!



I WILL NOT FIGHT

I will not fight
To save for Wall street
The exclusive privilege
Of exploiting, degrading
The people of America —

For a flag, for markets, for words
Like patriotism, prosperity, or
To keep the Japanese or any other people out.
There's room enough for the whole world of men.

I will not fight
To perpetuate slavery —
But with a mighty battle
To open the land of America
To the dispossessed millions
Count me in to the end.

Next: War Lines