Communist Poems/Poetry

[Muzk]

Hello!

I just googled communist poems, but I found nothing :-( Any of you know some good poems or want to make some? :thumbup1:
I found this tho

When my blood flows calm as a purling river,
When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway,
It is then that I vow we must part for ever,
That I will forget you, and put you away
Out of my life, as a dream is banished
Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes;
That I know it will be when the spell has vanished,
Better for both of our sakes.

When the court of the mind is ruled by Reason,
I know it wiser for us to part;
But Love is a spy who is plotting treason,
In league with that warm, red rebel, the Heart.
They whisper to me that the King is cruel,
That his reign is wicked, his law a sin,
And every word they utter is fuel
To the flame that smoulders within.

And on nights like this, when my blood runs riot
With the fever of youth and its mad desires,
When my brain in vain bids my heart be quiet,
When my breast seems the centre of lava-fires,
Oh, then is when most I miss you,
And I swear by the stars and my soul and say
That I will have you, and hold you, and kiss you,
Though the whole world stands in the way.

And like Communists, as mad, as disloyal,
My fierce emotions roam out of their lair;
They hate King Reason for being royal –
They would fire his castle, and burn him there.
O Love! They would clasp you, and crush you and kill you,
In the insurrection of uncontrol.
Across the miles, does this wild war thrill you
That is raging in my soul?

[Random Precision]

Check out works by these poets:

Bertolt Brecht: From a German War Primer (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/5679/), Questions from a Worker who Reads (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/questions-from-a-worker-who-reads/)
César Vallejo: Masa (http://www.theliberal.co.uk/issue_9/poetry/vallejo_masa_9.html)
Adrian Mitchell: To Whom it may Concern (http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/28.html)
Vladimir Mayakovsky: Call to Account! (http://trotsky.org/subject/art/literature/mayakovsky/1917/to-account.htm)
Nâzım Hikmet: Last Will and Testament (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/last-will-and-testament/)

And also Pablo Neruda, André Breton, Louis Aragon...

[scarletghoul]

Yeah, there are loads of communist poets. And many communist leaders also write poetry. I really like the poems of Jose Maria Sison, some of which are available here http://www.josemariasison.org/jumi02/inps/poetry.htm

[red cat]

Nice ones here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/poems/index.htm

[Muzk]

Just checked out from a german war primer, it's pretty nice

THE WORKERS CRY OUT FOR BREAD
The merchants cry out for markets.
The unemployed were hungry. The employed
Are hungry now.
The hands that lay folded are busy again.
They are making shells.

And

WHEN IT COMES TO MARCHING MANY DO NOT
KNOW
That their enemy is marching at their head.
The voice which gives them their orders
Is their enemy's voice and
The man who speaks of the enemy
Is the enemy himself.

Reminds me of America.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.


I love such metaphorical things:wub:

[Angry Young Man]

I picked up a collection from the city library called Red Sky at Night, collected by Andy Croft and Adrian Mitchell. I need to return it, come think it, but get one on amazon or something

[cenv]

Communist haiku:

Fuck capitalists
I hate them so very much
Working class unite

One day yet to come
Proletariat will rise
AND FUCK THIS SHIT UP

On a slightly more serious note, Wikipedia has a list of communist poets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communist_poets).

[JohannGE]

The Socialist A.B.C.

When that I was a little tiny boy,
Me daddy said to me,
’The time has come, me bonny bonny bairn
To learn your ABC’.

Now daddy was a Lodge Chairman
In the coalfields of the Tyne,
And that ABC was different
From the Enid Blyton kind.

He sang;

A is for Alienation that made me the man that I am
and B’s for the Boss, who’s a bastard, a bourgeois who don’t give a damn.
C is for Capitalism, the boss’s reactionary creed,
and D’s for Dictatorship, laddie, but the best proletarian breed.

E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long;
and F is for old Ludwig Feuerbach, the first one to see it was wrong.

G is for all Gerrymanderers, like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname,
and H is the Hell that they’ll go to, when the workers have kindled the flame.

I is for Imperialism, and America’s kind is the worst,
and J is for sweet Jingoism, that the Tories all think of first.

K is for good old Keir Hardie, who fought out the working class fight
and L is for Vladimir Lenin, who showed him the Left was all right.

M is of course for Karl Marx, the daddy and the mammy of them all,
and N is for Nationalisation, without it we’d crumble and fall.

O is for Overproduction that capitalist economy brings,
and P is for Private Property, the greatest of all of the sins.

Q is for the Quid pro quo, that we’ll deal out so well and so soon,
when R for Revolution is shouted and the Red Flag becomes the top tune.

S is for sad Stalinism, that gave us all such a bad name,
and T is for Trotsky the hero, who had to take all of the blame.

U’s for the Union of workers, the Union will stand to the end,
and V is for Vodka, yes, Vodka, the one drink that don’t bring the bends.

W is for all Willing workers, and that’s where the memory fades,
for X, Y and Z, me dear daddy said, will be written on the street barricades.

But now that I’m not a little tiny boy,
Me daddy says to me,
’Please try to forget the things I said,
Especially the ABC.’

For daddy’s no longer a Union man,
And he’s had to change his plea.
His alphabet is different now,
Since they made him a Labour MP.

Alex Glasgow
(1935 - 2001)

[red cat]

R for revisionism seems appropriate for this poem.

[scarletghoul]

And L for Lame

[cop an Attitude]

I've had this one for a while,


2 Pennies

You’re standing at the hill, headman’s noose.
Lone on the alter with no worthy excuse
You got no salvation, no cutting loose
Just waiting for the end without the truce
This land’s obtuse
The spectators watch as the rope draws near
A child cries out but no one hears
a victim of the times in the old frontier
you scream to the heavens, but god can’t hear
Then they cheer.

Lets march to the gold its better than the robe
And we’ll be dreaming in time
Let’s race to the white picket finish line
Pray to greed you can climb
Once the goal’s in sight
do we really have a dime?
To give to the painter and prophet
Who drinks alone with the mime

Profile, Portfolio, Downsize, Accessorize
Upgrade, Upload, Raise, Blaze, look for praise
Their sweat wets the plastic, then it’s made
Leave before we pay the meter maid
We’ll drink to emptiness and throw a parade.
Let’s take the treasure and go crusade
And hope to greed we aren’t being betrayed

Unfinished business is the only kind
Unaware scouts are hard to find
The last road past the land of the blind
But we’re still confided
till death we’re entwined
falling, to the great ones on the mall
calling, too the lone boy in the stall
Installing, a new leader and a wall
Stalling, the eventual rise of all

Or are we simply just too small?

Lets march to the gold its better than the robe
And we’ll be dreaming in time
Let’s race to the white picket finish line
Pray to greed you can climb
Once the goal’s in sight
Do we really have a dime?
To give to the painter and prophet
Who drinks alone with the mime

Last train is heading out of the city
Will we fair with less than the fare
I’ve got 2 pennies, let’s keep it witty
They just announced the new heir
Looking back to the cheering crowd with pity
So who is the real millionaire?
Just a gentlemen who sold his flair.
Addiction to compensation can leave you square.

[ZeroNowhere]

E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long;
and F is for old Ludwig Feuerbach, the first one to see it was wrong.It's a pretty boring poem, but here they're just making shit up. Not the only time, of course.

[MilitantAnarchist]

Where Did Karl Marx Sit?

to get into The Reading Room
of the formerly great British Museum
known to all who speak of it
as the BM
you have to prove to them
that you need books only they have.
Then they take your picture
plastic coat it with your name
five digit #, date, and nothing else
no mention of the BM per se
so that this lumpy lumpen ruling class
thirty-six year old
radical American white boy me
had to travel to the greatest storehouse
of Western imperialism to be granted
a generic all purpose I.D
according to which
my beaming bespectacled face
expires end of Jan 86

Admited at last
I did not ask
WHERE DID KARL MAX SIT?
because i did not want to feel
like I hadn't done the reading
so i bought the illustrated booklet
on the architectural and celebrity
history of The Reading Room
whose dome is larger then St Paul's
held up by My Fair Lady's royalties
every Eng. Lit. wrtier since c.Shakespeare
was a Reader
foreigners come to figure out
how to make revolutions in other countries
and the question most often asked
by visitors from every corner
is WHERE DID KARL MARX SIT?
good to know i was in the flow

The published answer says
since there are not reserved seats
we can only sumise somewhere 'tween rows K and P
near the catalogs he used
But you and I know
any bloke who books it for decades
sits more or less in the very same seat
So i sat and thought
what would Karl carve
maybe even unconsciously
into the desk of time?
And then it hit me:
there is one statement he made...
I jumped and within ten minutes
crawling under the wooden tables
flicking my bic illegally for light
fingers and eyes darting over
a hundred years of hardened gum
sure enough, there it was!
I am not a Marxist

by Jim Murray

[JohannGE]

R for revisionism seems appropriate for this poem.

Simplistic, childish even, but you will have to explain the revisionism for me.

Here's couple more, (warning...unlikely to be appreciated by quasi-intellectual elitists with poor awareness of working class history.)

As soon as this pub closes.

I could ha done it yesterday if I adn't a cold,
But since I’ve put this pint away I’ve niver felt so bold.
So as soon as this pub closes, as soon as this pub closes,
As soon as this pub closes, the revolution starts.

I'll shoot the aristocracy and confiscate their brass,
Create a fine democracy that's truly working class.
As soon as this pub closes, as soon as this pub closes,
As soon as this pub closes, I’ll raise the banner high.


I'll fight the nasty racialists and scrap the colour bar,
And all fascist dictatorships and every commissar.
As soon as this pub closes, as soon as this pub closes,
As soon as this pub closes, I’ll man the barricades.

So raise your glasses, everyone, for everything is planned,
And each and every mother's son will see the Promised Land.
As soon as this pub closes, as soon as this pub closes,
As soon as this pub closes,
I think I'm going to be sick.

---

Close the coalhouse door, lad.

Close the coalhouse door, lad. Tha's blood inside,
Blood from broken hands and feet,
Blood that's dried on pit-black meat,
Blood from hearts that know no beat.
Close the coalhouse door, lad.
Tha's blood inside.

Close the coalhouse door, lad. Tha's bones inside,
Mangled, splintered piles of bones,
Buried 'neath a mile of stone,
Not a soul to hear the groans.
Close the coalhouse door, lad.
Tha's bones inside.

Close the coalhouse door, lad. Tha's bairns inside,
Bairns that had no time to hide,
Bairns that saw the blackness slide,
Bairns beneath the mountainside.
Close the coalhouse door, lad.
There's bairns inside.

Close the coalhouse door, lad, and stay outside.
Geordie's standin' at the dole,
And Mrs Jackson, like a fool,
Complains 'bout the price of coal.
Close the coalhouse door, lad, tha's blood inside.
Tha's bones inside,
Tha's bairns inside,
so stay outside.
-

[JohannGE]

And L for Lame

I sincerely hope you manage to acheive a fraction of what Alex Glasgow did to spread socialism to a working class audience.

Lame? ... perhaps he anticipated such a responce:-

My Daddy is a left-wing intellectual

O, My Daddy is a left-wing intellectual
You can see it from the funny clothes he wears
In his greasy leather jacket or his suit of corduroy
Or that woollen shirt that's full of stains and tears

O, My Daddy is a left-wing intellectual
He used to be a Stalinist they say
For a while he was a Trotskyist
until he saw what he had risked
Now he's just a pragmatist.

O, My Daddy is a left-wing intellectual
But he thought the Beatles were a gas
Mind, he didn't like their music,
or their haircuts and the rest
He liked them 'cause they were from the working class.

O, My Daddy is a left-wing intellectual
Supports the co-op movement do-or-die.
We must nationalise he cries,
down with private enterprise.
But his divvy comes from shares in ICI

O, My Daddy is a left-wing intellectual
Believes in full equality for men,
But you should have heard the fuss
when I failed the 11-plus,
He packed me off to Eton there and then

Alex Glasgow

Them dam, uneducated working classes eh...what does a pitman's son from Newcastle, born in the depression, know about socialism anyway! :(
-

[ZeroNowhere]

The published answer says
since there are not reserved seats
we can only sumise somewhere 'tween rows K and P
near the catalogs he used
But you and I know
any bloke who books it for decades
sits more or less in the very same seat
So i sat and thought
what would Karl carve
maybe even unconsciously
into the desk of time?
And then it hit me:
there is one statement he made...
I jumped and within ten minutes
crawling under the wooden tables
flicking my bic illegally for light
fingers and eyes darting over
a hundred years of hardened gum
sure enough, there it was!
I am not a Marxist
I should have guessed that somebody had made a shitty poem about that quote.

[Devrim]

I like the Hikmet poem that RP linked to above. It is one of my favourites.
The Russian poet Blok is interesting especially 'The Twelve', which sort of compares twelve red guards with the apostles, and 'Sycthians, which have the communists as hords ready to flood out of the step over Europe.
The left communist, Herman Gorter was also a renowned poet seen as being amongst the leaders of Dutch literature. I believe wrote an epic poem called 'The factory council' though I haven't read it.

Devrim

[Random Precision]

I like the Hikmet poem that RP linked to above. It is one of my favourites.

I meant to ask you this earlier, but would you happen to know who "the worker Osman" and "the martyr Aysha" are? My edition of his selected verse unfortunately doesn't mention it. :(

[Devrim]

;)
I meant to ask you this earlier, but would you happen to know who "the worker Osman" and "the martyr Aysha" are? My edition of his selected verse unfortunately doesn't mention it. :(

I don't think they are specific historical people, just the people you would find in a typical small village.

Devrim

[spiltteeth]

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Claude Mckay
HYPERLINK "http://propagandapress.org/category/revolutionary-poetry/" http://propagandapress.org/category/revolutionary-poetry/


What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know you who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
HYPERLINK "http://www.margepiercy.com/books/moon-always-female.htm" -Marge Piercy
From “The Moon is Always Female”, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Copyright 1980 by Marge Piercy

The Poetics of Anarchy: David Edelshtat's Revolutionary Poetry
HYPERLINK "http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/2z35d2" http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/2z35d2

I Am Neda
Leave the Basiji bullet in my heart, 
fall to prayer in my blood, and hush, father 
-- I am not dead.
More light than mass, 
I rise through you, breathe with your eyes, 
stand in your shoes, on the rooftops, 
in the streets, march with you 
in the cities and villages of our country 
shouting through you, with you. 
I am Neda--thunder on your tongue.
This one was written by Iranian-American poet HYPERLINK "http://www.sholehwolpe.com/" \t "_blank" Sholeh Wolpe.
inspired by the death of Neda, the now iconic figure shot during a protest by Basij:


Not Here."
There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-
open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp
compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want
a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.
We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm
won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.
-rumi


The revolutionary poetry and life of Roque Dalton
HYPERLINK "http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6738&news_iv_ctrl=1321" http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6738&news_iv_ctrl=1321


HYPERLINK "http://sadielou.net/2008/04/21/poetry-of-the-russian-revolution" http://sadielou.net/2008/04/21/poetry-of-the-russian-revolution



Death the Mexican Revolutionary
BY ANTHONY HECHT
Wines of the great châteaux
Have been uncorked for you;
Come, take this terrace chair:
Examine the menu.
The view from here is such
As cannot find a match,
For even as you dine
You’re so placed as to watch
Starvation in our streets
That gives your canap�
A more exquisite taste
By contrast, like the play
Of shadow and of light.
The misery of the poor
Appears, as on TV,
Set off by the allure
And glamour of the ads.
We recommend the quail,
Which you’d do well to eat
Before your powers fail,
For I inaugurate
A brand-new social order
Six cold, decisive feet
South of the border.
Anthony Hecht






HYPERLINK "http://www.marxist.com/ArtAndLiterature-old/british_poets1.html" http://www.marxist.com/ArtAndLiterature-old/british_poets1.html

Amiri Baraka
Pablo Armando Fernandez HYPERLINK "http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/03/09/cuban-writer-praises-revolution-through-poetry/4347/" http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/03/09/cuban-writer-praises-revolution-through-poetry/4347/

[spiltteeth]

as mao was dying he sent the following prose poem, summation and warning to his wife Jiang Jing (and through her to us all).

"You have been wronged. Today we are separating into two worlds. I am old and will soon die. May each keep his peace. These few words may be my last message to you. Human life is limited, but revolution knows no bounds. In the struggle of the past ten years I have tried to reach the peak of revolution, but I was not successful. But you could reach the top. If you fail, you will plunge into a fathomless abyss. Your body will shatter. Your bones will break."



The Litany of Atlanta W.E.B. DuBois

A LITANY AT ATLANTA
***O SILENT GOD, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an hungered in these fearful days-
******Hear us, good Lord!

***Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery in Thy sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy heaven, O God, crying:
******We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

***We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men. When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed: curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home. 
******Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!

***And yet whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime, and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity?
******Thou knowest, good God!

***Is this Thy justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence, and the innocent crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty?
******Justice, O judge of men! 

***Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the fathers dead? Have not seers seen in Heaven's halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and rolling smoke of sin; where all along bow bitter forms of endless dead?
******Awake, Thou that sleepest!

***Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, thru blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free-far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy and chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust!
******Turn again, O Lord, leave us not to perish in our sin!

***From lust of body and lust of blood 
******Great God, deliver us!

***From lust of power and lust of gold,
******Great God, deliver us!

***From the leagued lying of despot and of brute,
******Great God, deliver us! 

***A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack and cry of death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars when church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance!
******Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!

***In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they-did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with bloody jaws: Cease from Crime! The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one.
******Turn again our captivity, O Lord! 

***Behold this maimed and broken thing; dear God, it was an humble black man who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They told him: Work and Rise. He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but some one told how some one said another did-one whom he had never seen nor known. Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked to shame, his children, to poverty and evil. 
******Hear us, O Heavenly Father!

***Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed brutes who do such deeds high on Thine altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn it in hell forever and forever!
******Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!

***Bewildered we are, and passion-tost, mad with the madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy Throne, we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the Plan; give us the Sign!
******Keep not thou silence, O God! 

***Sit no longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb suffering. Surely Thou too art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing?
******Ah! Christ of all the Pities!

***Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words. Thou art still the God of our black fathers, and in Thy soul's soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.

***But whisper-speak-call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path.

***Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and without, the liar. Whither? To death? 
******Amen! Welcome dark sleep!

***Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must, and it is red, Ah! God! It is a red and awful shape.
******Selah!

***In yonder East trembles a star.
******Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord! 
***Thy will, O Lord, be done!
******Kyrie Eleison!

***Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words.
******We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

***We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little children. 
******We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

***Our voices sink in silence and in night.
******Hear us, good Lord!

***In night, O God of a godless land!
******Amen! 

***In silence, O Silent God.
******Selah!



Mahmoud Darwish
Under Siege HYPERLINK "http://www.poemhunter.com/mahmoud-darwish/" http://www.poemhunter.com/mahmoud-darwish/



The Internationale:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

Eugene Pottier




'Good Morning Revolution' by Langston Hughes



Sonnet: England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;
A Senate, -Time's worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Percy Shelley





Paul Eluard - November 1936, Liberty




'Gabriel Peri':

A man has died who had no other shield 
Than his arms open wide to life
A man has died who had no other road
Than the road where rifles are hated
A man has died who battles still 
Against death against oblivion

For all the things he wanted
We wanted too
We want them to-day
Happiness to be the light
Within the heart within the eyes
And justice on earth

There are words that help us to live 
And they are plain words
The word warmth the word trust
Love justice and the word freedom
The word child and the word kindness
The names of certain flowers and certain fruits
The word courage and the word discover
The word brother and the word comrade
The name of certain lands and villages
The names of women and friends
Now let us add the name of Peri
Peri has died for all that gives us life
Let's call him friend his chest is bullet-torn
But thanks to him we know each other better
Let's call each other friend his hope lives on.




A Youth

I do not know why I was born into this world,
I do not ask why I shall die.
When I was born the delicate May morn unfurled
its flowery freshness to the eye.

I greeted youthful Spring, I greeted vernal youth
and opened eager eyes to see
how life would come to me, beautiful and smooth,
amid a joyous rhapsody.

But no, I wasn't hailed by Spring with merry sounds
and showers of fragrant petals,
instead, a villain met me with a pack of hounds
to put my hands and feet in fetters.

Through clouds of fiendish greed and wicked spite,
a sinister shadow crept near,
a gold-armoured monster reared his height
dripping with blood and human tears.

In the falling gloom loomed faces pale and lea,
I heard laments in plaintive strains
and threats to repay for pain and vileness mean,
I also heard the clatter of chains.

I recognized my brothers who were kept enslaved
by the ungodly god of gold,
I saw the spirit of man: abased, depraved
and crucified a thousandfold.

I cried out in iron words and wrathful indignation:
May this be the dire day of doom!
The day of ruin and of new creation!
May fires blaze in this icy gloom!

May this, our earth, begin a fiery feast!
May the thunder roll and glow!
The slaves will unite to fight the monstrous beast,
and hurricanes of souls will blow!

I'll raise the banner of brotherhood unfurled,
and I will keep it flying high,
and then I'll know why I've come into the world,
I'll also know for what to die. 

Another bulgarian socialist - Hristo Smirnenski



Sharing the Spoils

We are brothers in spirit, you and I

Cherishing the same ideals,

And I believe there's nothing in this world

We'll have to regret, you and I.



Posterity will judge -

Did we good or did we evil,

But for now - hand in hand -

Let's move forward, our steps more sure!



Suffering and poverty in foreign land

Were our life companions,

But we shared them like brothers

And we'll share them again, we two...



We'll share choruses of rebuke, you and I

And suffer the mockery of fools -

We'll suffer - but we'll not groan

Beneath human torment of any kind.



And we'll not bow our heads

To passions and profane idols:

Our two mournful lyres

Have already told what's in our hearts.



So forward now, with spirit and ideals

To the final sharing of the spoils:

To fulfill our sacred pledge -

Toward death brother, let's go toward death!

Hristo Botev ,one of the greatest revolutionaries of Bulgaria, who participated in the fight and died for the freedom of my country !!!



The Mask of Anarchy
Written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester.

by Percy Bysshe Shelley



As I lay asleep in Italy 
There came a voice from over the Sea, 
And with great power it forth led me 
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way— 
He had a mask like Castlereagh— 
Very smooth he looked, yet grim ; 
Seven blood-hounds followed him :

All were fat ; and well they might 
Be in admirable plight, 
For one by one, and two by two, 
He tossed them human hearts to chew 
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on, 
Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown ; 
His big tears, for he wept well, 
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who 
Round his feet played to and fro, 
Thinking every tear a gem, 
Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light, 
And the shadows of the night, 
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy 
On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played 
In this ghastly masquerade, 
All disguised, even to the eyes, 
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.

Last came Anarchy : he rode 
On a white horse, splashed with blood ; 
He was pale even to the lips, 
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown ; 
And in his grasp a sceptre shone ; 
On his brow this mark I saw— 
‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’

With a pace stately and fast, 
Over English land he passed, 
Trampling to a mire of blood 
The adoring multitude.

And with a mighty troop around 
With their trampling shook the ground, 
Waving each a bloody sword, 
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph they 
Rode through England proud and gay, 
Drunk as with intoxication 
Of the wine of desolation.

O’er fields and towns, from sea to sea, 
Passed the Pageant swift and free, 
Tearing up, and trampling down ; 
Till they came to London town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken, 
Felt his heart with terror sicken 
Hearing the tempestuous cry 
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For from pomp to meet him came, 
Clothed in arms like blood and flame, 
The hired murderers, who did sing 
‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.

‘We have waited weak and lone 
For thy coming, Mighty One! 
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold, 
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’

Lawyers and priests a motley crowd, 
To the earth their pale brows bowed ; 
Like a bad prayer not over loud, 
Whispering—‘Thou art Law and God.’—

Then all cried with one accord, 
‘Thou art King, and God, and Lord ; 
Anarchy, to thee we bow, 
Be thy name made holy now!’

And Anarchy, the Skeleton, 
Bowed and grinned to every one, 
As well as if his education 
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

For he knew the Palaces 
Of our Kings were rightly his ; 
His the sceptre, crown, and globe, 
And the gold-inwoven robe.

So he sent his slaves before 
To seize upon the Bank and Tower, 
And was proceeding with intent 
To meet his pensioned Parliament

When one fled past, a maniac maid, 
And her name was Hope, she said : 
But she looked more like Despair, 
And she cried out in the air :

‘My father Time is weak and gray 
With waiting for a better day ; 
See how idiot-like he stands, 
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

‘He has had child after child, 
And the dust of death is piled 
Over every one but me— 
Misery, oh, Misery!’

Then she lay down in the street, 
Right before the horses feet, 
Expecting, with a patient eye, 
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

When between her and her foes 
A mist, a light, an image rose. 
Small at first, and weak, and frail 
Like the vapour of a vale :

Till as clouds grow on the blast, 
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast, 
And glare with lightnings as they fly, 
And speak in thunder to the sky.

It grew—a Shape arrayed in mail 
Brighter than the viper’s scale, 
And upborne on wings whose grain 
Was as the light of sunny rain.

On its helm, seen far away, 
A planet, like the Morning’s, lay ; 
And those plumes its light rained through 
Like a shower of crimson dew.

With step as soft as wind it passed 
O’er the heads of men—so fast 
That they knew the presence there, 
And looked,—but all was empty air.

As flowers beneath May’s footstep waken, 
As stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken, 
As waves arise when loud winds call, 
Thoughts sprung where’er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude 
Looked—and ankle-deep in blood, 
Hope, that maiden most serene, 
Was walking with a quiet mien :

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, 
Lay dead earth upon the earth ; 
The Horse of Death tameless as wind 
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind 
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour, 
A sense awakening and yet tender 
Was heard and felt—and at its close 
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth 
Which gave the sons of England birth 
Had felt their blood upon her brow, 
And shuddering with a mother’s throe

Had turned every drop of blood 
By which her face had been bedewed 
To an accent unwithstood,— 
As if her heart cried out aloud :

‘Men of England, heirs of Glory, 
Heroes of unwritten story, 
Nurslings of one mighty Mother, 
Hopes of her, and one another ;

‘Rise like Lions after slumber 
In unvanquishable number. 
Shake your chains to earth like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you— 
Ye are many—they are few.

‘What is Freedom?—ye can tell 
That which slavery is, too well— 
For its very name has grown 
To an echo of your own.

‘’Tis to work and have such pay 
As just keeps life from day to day 
In your limbs, as in a cell 
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,

‘So that ye for them are made 
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade, 
With or without your own will bent 
To their defence and nourishment.

‘’Tis to see your children weak 
With their mothers pine and peak, 
When the winter winds are bleak,— 
They are dying whilst I speak.

‘’Tis to hunger for such diet 
As the rich man in his riot 
Casts to the fat dogs that lie 
Surfeiting beneath his eye ;

‘’Tis to let the Ghost of Gold 
Take from Toil a thousandfold 
More than e’er its substance could 
In the tyrannies of old.

‘Paper coin—that forgery 
Of the title-deeds, which ye 
Hold to something from the worth 
Of the inheritance of Earth.

‘’Tis to be a slave in soul 
And to hold no strong control 
Over your own wills, but be 
All that others make of ye.

‘And at length when ye complain 
With a murmur weak and vain 
’Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew 
Ride over your wives and you— 
Blood is on the grass like dew.

‘Then it is to feel revenge 
Fiercely thirsting to exchange 
Blood for blood—and wrong for wrong— 
Do not thus when ye are strong.

‘Birds find rest, in narrow nest 
When weary of their wingèd quest ; 
Beasts find fare, in woody lair 
When storm and snow are in the air.

‘Horses, oxen, have a home, 
When from daily toil they come ; 
Household dogs, when the wind roars, 
Find a home within warm doors.’

‘Asses, swine, have litter spread 
And with fitting food are fed ; 
All things have a home but one— 
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none !

‘This is Slavery—savage men, 
Or wild beasts within a den 
Would endure not as ye do— 
But such ills they never knew.

‘What art thou, Freedom ? O ! could slaves 
Answer from their living graves 
This demand—tyrants would flee 
Like a dream’s imagery :

‘Thou are not, as impostors say, 
A shadow soon to pass away, 
A superstition, and a name 
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

‘For the labourer thou art bread, 
And a comely table spread 
From his daily labour come 
In a neat and happy home.

‘Thou art clothes, and fire, and food 
For the trampled multitude— 
No—in countries that are free 
Such starvation cannot be 
As in England now we see.

‘To the rich thou art a check, 
When his foot is on the neck 
Of his victim, thou dost make 
That he treads upon a snake.

‘Thou art Justice—ne’er for gold 
May thy righteous laws be sold 
As laws are in England—thou 
Shield’st alike both high and low.

‘Thou art Wisdom—Freemen never 
Dream that God will damn for ever 
All who think those things untrue 
Of which Priests make such ado.

‘Thou art Peace—never by thee 
Would blood and treasure wasted be 
As tyrants wasted them, when all 
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

‘What if English toil and blood 
Was poured forth, even as a flood ? 
It availed, Oh, Liberty. 
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

‘Thou art Love—the rich have kissed 
Thy feet, and like him following Christ, 
Give their substance to the free 
And through the rough world follow thee,

‘Or turn their wealth to arms, and make 
War for thy belovèd sake 
On wealth, and war, and fraud—whence they 
Drew the power which is their prey.

‘Science, Poetry, and Thought 
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot 
Of the dwellers in a cot 
So serene, they curse it not.

‘Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, 
All that can adorn and bless 
Art thou—let deeds, not words, express 
Thine exceeding loveliness.

‘Let a great Assembly be 
Of the fearless and the free 
On some spot of English ground 
Where the plains stretch wide around.

‘Let the blue sky overhead, 
The green earth on which ye tread, 
All that must eternal be 
Witness the solemnity.

‘From the corners uttermost 
Of the bounds of English coast ; 
From every hut, village, and town 
Where those who live and suffer moan 
For others’ misery or their own,

‘From the workhouse and the prison 
Where pale as corpses newly risen, 
Women, children, young and old 
Groan for pain, and weep for cold—

‘From the haunts of daily life 
Where is waged the daily strife 
With common wants and common cares 
Which sows the human heart with tares—

‘Lastly from the palaces 
Where the murmur of distress 
Echoes, like the distant sound 
Of a wind alive around

‘Those prison halls of wealth and fashion. 
Where some few feel such compassion 
For those who groan, and toil, and wail 
As must make their brethren pale—

‘Ye who suffer woes untold, 
Or to feel, or to behold 
Your lost country bought and sold 
With a price of blood and gold—

‘Let a vast assembly be, 
And with great solemnity 
Declare with measured words that ye 
Are, as God has made ye, free—

‘Be your strong and simple words 
Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 
And wide as targes let them be, 
With their shade to cover ye.

‘Let the tyrants pour around 
With a quick and startling sound, 
Like the loosening of a sea, 
Troops of armed emblazonry.

‘Let the charged artillery drive 
Till the dead air seems alive 
With the clash of clanging wheels, 
And the tramp of horses’ heels.

‘Let the fixèd bayonet 
Gleam with sharp desire to wet 
Its bright point in English blood 
Looking keen as one for food.

‘Let the horsemen’s scimitars 
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars 
Thirsting to eclipse their burning 
In a sea of death and mourning.

‘Stand ye calm and resolute, 
Like a forest close and mute, 
With folded arms and looks which are 
Weapons of unvanquished war,

‘And let Panic, who outspeeds 
The career of armèd steeds 
Pass, a disregarded shade 
Through your phalanx undismayed.

‘Let the laws of your own land, 
Good or ill, between ye stand 
Hand to hand, and foot to foot, 
Arbiters of the dispute,

‘The old laws of England—they 
Whose reverend heads with age are gray, 
Children of a wiser day ; 
And whose solemn voice must be 
Thine own echo—Liberty !

‘On those who first should violate 
Such sacred heralds in their state 
Rest the blood that must ensue, 
And it will not rest on you.

‘And if then the tyrants dare 
Let them ride among you there, 
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, — 
What they like, that let them do.

‘With folded arms and steady eyes, 
And little fear, and less surprise, 
Look upon them as they slay 
Till their rage has died away.’

‘Then they will return with shame 
To the place from which they came, 
And the blood thus shed will speak 
In hot blushes on their cheek.

‘Every woman in the land 
Will point at them as they stand— 
They will hardly dare to greet 
Their acquaintance in the street.

‘And the bold, true warriors 
Who have hugged Danger in wars 
Will turn to those who would be free, 
Ashamed of such base company.

‘And that slaughter to the Nation 
Shall steam up like inspiration, 
Eloquent, oracular ; 
A volcano heard afar.

‘And these words shall then become 
Like Oppression’s thundered doom 
Ringing through each heart and brain. 
Heard again—again—again—

‘Rise like Lions after slumber 
In unvanquishable number— 
Shake your chains to earth like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you— 
Ye are many—they are few.’


Edit: Shelley wrote this after the Army had murdered innocent people who were holding a political meeting at St Peter's Fields in Manchester. It became known as "The Peterloo Massacre."


*Milton


The United Fruit Co. by Pablo Neruda

When the trumpet sounded, it was

all prepared on the earth,

and Jehovah parceled out the earth

to Coca-Cola, Inc., Anaconda,

Ford Motors, and other entities:

The Fruit Company, Inc.

reserved for itself the most succulent,

the central coast of my own land,

the delicate waist of America.

It rechristened its territories

as the “Banana Republics”

and over the sleeping dead,

over the restless heroes

who brought about the greatness,

the liberty and the flags,

it established the comic opera:

abolished the independencies,

presented crowns of Caesar,

unsheathed envy, attracted

the dictatorship of the flies,

Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,

Carias flies, Martinez flies,

Ubico flies, damp flies

of modest blood and marmalade,

drunken flies who zoom

over the ordinary graves,

circus flies, wise flies

well trained in tyranny.

Among the bloodthirsty flies

the Fruit Company lands its ships,

taking off the coffee and the fruit;

the treasure of our submerged

territories flows as though

on plates into the ships.

Meanwhile Indians are falling

into the sugared chasms

of the harbors, wrapped

for burial in the mist of the dawn:

a body rolls, a thing

that has no name, a fallen cipher,

a cluster of dead fruit

thrown down on the dump.

—translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly
__________________

The Interrogation of the Good

Step forward: we hear
That you are a good man.

You cannot be bought, but the lightning
Which strikes the house, also
Cannot be bought.
You hold to what you said.
But what did you say?
You are honest, you say your opinion.
Which opinion?
You are brave.
Against whom?
You are wise.
For whom?
You do not consider your personal advantages.
Whose advantages do you consider then?
You are a good friend.
Are you also a good friend of the good people?

Hear us then: we know.
You are our enemy. This is why we shall
Now put you in front of a wall. But in consideration
of your merits and good qualities
We shall put you in front of a good wall and shoot you
With a good bullet from a good gun and bury you
With a good shovel in the good earth.

- Bertolt Brecht



THE STALIN EPIGRAM

Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.

But whenever there’s a snatch of talk
it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer,

the ten thick worms his fingers,
his words like measure of weight,

the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip,
the glitter of his boot-rims.

Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.

One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he alone goes boom.

He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes,
One for the groin, one the forehead, temple, eye.

He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.

- Osip Mandelstam

For which the poet was arrested and sent to Siberia, where he died.



Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.




I Know I'm Not Sufficiently Obscure

by Ray Durem

I know I'm not sufficiently obscure
to please the critics -- nor devious enough.
Imagery escapes me.
I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.
Blood is blood and murder's murder.
What's a lavender word for lynch?
Come, you pale poets, wan, refined and dreamy:
here is a black woman working out her guts
in a white man's kitchen
for little money and no glory.
How should I tell that story?
There is a black boy, blacker still from death,
face down in the cold Korean mud.
Come on with your effervescent jive
explain to him why he ain't alive.
Reword our specific discontent
into some plaintive melody,
a little whine, a little whimper,
not too much -- and no rebellion!
God, no! Rebellion's much too corny.
You deal with finer feelings,
very subtle -- an autumn leaf
hanging from a tree -- I see a body!

[black magick hustla]

most of these are pretty bad. political poetry is notoriously bad. hikmet is great, and so is vallejos tho. neruda has the ocasional political gem too

[Pogue]

I agree with dada, I think its almost a foregone conclusion that political poetry will be bad, it'll be predictable and unimaginative. What I find mroe interesting is poetry about ordinary, everyday working class life and troubles, such as what you'll hear in the works of say, Shane MacGowan or the likes, gritty, unescapably political in its relation to the world, but not explicitly political.