Prisoners

Selected Poems (1955)

Within the wires of the post, unloading the cans of garbage,The three in soiled blue denim (the white P on their backsSending its chilly North six yards to the turning blackenedSights of the cradled rifle, to the eyes of the yawning guard)Go on all day being punished, go on all month, all yearLoading, unloading; give their childÕs, beastÕs sigh Ð of despair,Of endurance and of existence; look unexpectinglyAt the big guard, dark in his khaki, at the dust of the blazing plain,At the running or crawling soldiers in their soiled and shapeless green.

The prisoners, the guards, the soldiers - they are all, in their way, being trained.From these moments, repeated forever, our own new world will be made.

The Carriers. Selected Poems (1955)