Observations placeholder
Prokosch, Dr Frederic - Chosen Poems – from Victims
Identifier
029056
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Through the thicket of a nightmare, the politicians rage;
What is noble being noble only in a single age?
And what is base,
base only in a single circumstance?
Their armies bleed to death among the saplings and the sage
The maniac smiling over the hedge and toying with his knife,
The syphilitic reflecting on his curious role in life,
The tipsy, unshaven war veteran
bumming another smoke,
The tidy little accountant planning the murder of his wife
They all pray to money or hate, or an idol out of stone,
Overcome by a strange necessity; terribly alone;
All they thought they wanted was
the look in another’s eyes,
Lips meeting theirs, the touch of warm hands in their own.
They call across the fog as one by one they sink away,
‘O brothers, this is what your volumes all forgot to say,
These are the hearts you falsified,
the needs you all ignored;
These are the massive laws your age neglected to obey!’