Thursday, May 24, 2007

John Reed's Love at Sea

(A lot know comrade John Reed as the revolutionary Marxist who wrote 10 Days that shook the World. Few people knew about his poetry capabilities. This Poem was written in 1916)

Wind smothers the snarling of the great ships,
And the serene gulls are stronger than turbines;
Mile upon mile the hiss of a stumbling wave breaks unbroken—
Yet stronger is the power of your lips for my lips.

This cool green liquid death shall toss us living
Higher than high heaven and deeper than sighs—
But O the abrupt, stiff, sloping, resistless foam
Shall not forbid our taking and our giving!

Life wrenched from its roots-What wretchedness!
What waving of lost tentacles like blind sea-things!
Even the still ooze beneath is quick and profound—
I am less and more than I was, you are more and less.

I cried upon God last night, and God was not where I cried;
He was slipping and balancing on the thoughtless shifting planes of sea.
Careless and cruel, he will unchain the appalling sea-gray engines—
But the speech of your body to my body will not be denied!

1 comment:

Frank Partisan said...

See: Hersh On Lebanon. I think it confirms what you and Anarchist have been saying.

Send me an email. I haven't heard from you in awhile.