PERSPECTIVES

Pull up the collar of your coat
and walk, sucking on an empty pipe,
feeling in an empty pocket.
.recalling the hero books, the stories
of how they rose up on nights like this .. .
Search, then. Search through dark streets
through the alleys where night-eyes blink
the hollow warehouses that rattle their
corrugated roofs in fitful sleep
the phosphofesgent streets where the neo-Georgians
the neo-Normans lie smug in cellophane
and discretion pulls venetian blinds.
. then there was a guy named Van Gogh who
was hungry, too, they say . .
Search into the faces of the people
into the radios of the people
into the cars of the people;
count how many teeth, vacuum tubes, spark plugs;
notice the subtle movements,
the finger on the button
the eyes focused on the flicker
the foot on the accelerator;
and sit on the bench beside the river
and write them down on the sheet
labeled SOCIOLOGICAL REPORT, write down
facts facts facts facts facts;
the third line down, second column, will be
where you ought to be.
are you a young man out of work? Has it
ever occurred to you that air-conditioning and
mechanical refrigeration offer exciting and
profitable careers? . . .
-ROWLAND BARBER

Here is the father, caught on wire
Studded with barbs to hold him tight
While hissing jets of liquid fire
Burn him and bring his bones in sight.
Here is his trench-knife, dropped in fright
At finding he could move no more
When all the world was blue with light.
This is the way to win a war.
Here is the mother, past desire
To know her husband's fate tonight.
These stones were once a tall church spire
And here she knelt to pray God's might,
But airplanes came in droning flight,
Bombs screeched and burst with hungry roar.
The toppling nave was nightmare bright.
This is the way to win a war.
Here is the child. Gunner and flier
Have missed him in the heat of fight,
And he can wander through the mire ,
Of clotted blood, where wild dogs bite
His legs, grown tottery and slight,
Andhe can suck an apple core
And sleep in streets where crows alight.
This is the way to win a war.
ENVOY
All you who work for barbarous night
And long to break the temple-door
Of Honor, Decency and Right:
This is the way to win a war.


- CtIAD WAILSH

With salt and flour in the saddle bag
He herds the cattle up a windy mesa.
When chance permits he sleeps beneath a crag.
From quiet sleep he quickly wakes to face a
Storm cloud and drive the cattle up the canyon.
All things are huge to him. No daily trifle
Impedes his timeless life. le will not plan one
Meal; chance will bring food near his waiting rifle.
All things are huge: he has no radio,
No book, car--nothing but the Rocky-hush,
A pageant of the planets ebb and flow,
A lonely, god-like sense of spatial rush.
He fears no man-but he flies at seasonal change
To let gaunt winter graze the upland range.
-CHARLES MILLER

You did not leave a kiss upon my eyes
The day You left me for the bloody hill,
Nor gave one singing word to cut the still--
The madding still, undaunted by my cries.
But think You reticence will quiet sighs,
My foolish Lover, and my passionate will
To follow You whenYou have given me fill?
Beloved, love like our love never dies.
Your dark eyes turned into the cloudirig blue,
And gave me only silence. Self-restraining,
You gave no kiss, no song, no farewell start.
Still, my Beloved, I am more to You
Than if You left me satiate: uncomplaining
You shed one crimson tear to cleanse my heart.
DOROTHY FARNAN

Made on a lathe and clothed in a small passion
Shipped out by rail and left on a jungle siding;
A small effigy for a small and civilized delight,
But worshiped with hate and blood and savage drr
In ardent night I seek until the leopard comes
Ask riddle of the purring, sleek-furred beast,
This enemy of lust and thought and shame.
I regiment my hand but keep the fettering fine
To move when moving's urged ty sight of written flame
I eat before the morning rite the offered corn,
See finger prints upon the cloth
But no reference,
I am
Wooed by a woman with cold thighs
Whose needed touch has brought my passiondown
To prurient talk and games and inutile sighs.
-,JAMES GREEN