In bare necessity
a naked man knits
for himself with slick
silver needle of truth
from slim threads of
his imagination
what he clothes
himself to be;
in war so pretty
a trapeze of habits
with bar mitzvah
swinging above bold juice
he flexes his glove
for masturbation,
what he loathes
is what he sees.
This ideogrammic method
serves Mussolini
through baubles of babbling
in pisan positions
from North Africa
to Norway
against the arrogance
of Allied Forces;
deep flows crimson blood
through Italy
of comrades dabbling
in contrition,
longing for a vista
of today
with the vengeance
of wild horses.
A panorama reigns
with a plethora
of death on the
altar of democracy
and the hostage taking
of humanity
for eternity
with flash bulbs;
he is ashamed
of America
where none lives free
from blasphemy
of money making
through centuries
in misery
without resolve.
That he, himself,
blasphemes on radio
the one and only God
called America
and her disciples
while revolution
convulses Rome
and stinks Berlin;
cannot be squelched
by a slow show
of the effete snob,
the Nobel laureate
of trifles
and confusion
finds his home,
perpetual requiem.
Yet he writes
the Four Quartets
and quietly clears
crowded wilderness
for Dolittle,
Robert Lowell
and fence-man Frost,
and mountains move;
a war he fights
that never forgets
his brother's fear
of religious death
that belittles
every human soul
on every cross
as unimproved.
For Ezra Pound is,
is still at large,
and that is his, his
condition upon discharge.
Go forth from here
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