FIGHTER FOR FREEDOM

Things go into the making of a man,
Things that do not count and did not happen,
Things men do not do—but still are done.

By whom?

The finger does not point; the perpetrator does not
Answer to the cry of puzzled hurt, to the dumbness

Of the pain convention says we must not show--

Else we be whiners who have no guts, who are not brave.

The soundless cry floats on unneard,

And echoes in the ears of him who cried out

In the silence of his pride. And it is then he sees

There is not hope, because only these who do not care

Have heard--the others were too busy. And the doors

On which he beat his bloody fists were not doors at all

But something bigger, blacker, harder, that had no ninges

And could not use them if it had, because it was no barrier

But the very end.

And it is then he sees that Life is not the thing he thought--and sought

But, rather, is a great made joke

Of wild sadistic gods who hate themselves,

Who rape themselves and vomit in their hair;

Gods who pluck their own eyes from out their heads

And gulp them down as oysters, crying

All the while that they are blind, and cursing;

Gods who lap up their own sperm--because its stink

Is rotten to their nostrils, because its taste

Is putrid on their lips, and because the children

They desire it to create will never now exist--

And then they scream out laughter

From their mucky throats and cheer and sing with joy

Because they hate themselves--And have hurt

The things they hate.

And learning this the hurt one clamps his lips, and his cry

Is in its silence cut off in his throat. He sees with sudden clearness

That the things he's taught are mouthings of a fool.

His soul is shriveled up inside him, and the pain

Clouds up his eyes and makes them hard--and blind.

He sees Ideals are naught but lies--and that the Freedom

He's fought so hard to keep does not exist--is

The figment of an addict's dream, is the grasping

At a straw that is not there and was not ever there,

And could not be there--even if it were.

So he says, "Please, Sir, send me back to fight.

I want to fight for freedom!" And they marvel

At the bravery of him, while he thinks and laughs.

He thinks him of the woman that he wanted--

But could not have because the gulf of caste, of discipline,

Cannot be crossed with happiness or faith:

The lost cause never wins--the chopping block of Freedom

Is bloody with the heads of those who thought they could be free;

To succeed is still to fail, because the power of the rules

Is poison that destroys what the breaking of them gained.

FIGHTER FOR FREEDOM

Things go into the making of a man,
Things that do not count and did not happen,
Things men do not do--but still are done.

By whom?

The finger does not point; the perpitrator does not
Answer to the cry of puzzled hurt, to the dumbness
Of the pain convention says we must not show--

The soundless cry floats on unheard,
And echoes in the ears of him who cried out

In the silence of his pride. And it is then he sees
There is not hope, because only these who do not care
Have heard--the other were too busy. And the doors
On which he beat his bloody fists were not doors at all
But something bigger, blacker, harder, that had no hinges
And could not use them if it had, because it was no barrier
But the very end.

And it is then he sees that Life is not the thing he thought--and sought.
But, rather, is a great mad joke

The things they hate.

His soul is thrived up inside him, and the pain

Chauds up his eyes and makes them hard--and blind.

at the bravery of him, while he thinks and laughs.

He thinks him of the women that he wanted--

But could not have because the gulf of hate, of discipline,

3

He remembered how he, the fool, believed them
When they said he was a hero--and did not learn
Until too late that heroes are but pictures,
Are but stories in black type--with which
The people are persuaded and impressed.
He had made the unforviesable mistake
Of expecting some small payment for the fighting
He had done.

So beliefs and dreams eroded, and in their place
Grew hatred for the things he once had loved.
Hatred bred a killer. And the killer killed.
The killer that had been a man went back
To fight and revel in the only thing he knew:
The killing of the things he hated.

And so the last mad joke:
The killer and his brothers killed--
That the thing that made them killers,
The thing they disbelieved and hated as only killers hate,
Might go on to greater heights, to greater glories--
And might manufacture other killers.

A
And the maddened laughing gods with sperm-smearèd lips
Looked down and chrotled with their tongueless mouths
As they filled their drinking goblets full--with killers' blood.