by Ron Whitehead
to our new military industrial corporate complex secret government
the fathers who art cromwellian puritan roundheads
after w.b. yeats
turning and turning in the widening gyre
the falcon cannot hear the falconer
things fall apart the center will not hold
the powermongers are loosed upon the world
the blood stained tide is loosed and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned
the best lack all conviction while the worst
are full of passionate intensity
surely some revelation is at hand
surely the reformation is at hand
the reformation hardly are those words out
when vast images of oliver cromwell and j. edgar hoover
trouble my sight somewhere in sands of the desert
shapes with round bodies round heads
gazes blank and pitiless as the sun
are moving their slow thighs while all about them
reel shadows of indignant politicians and secret agents
the darkness drops again but now i know
that centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by the reformation
and what rough beasts their hour come round at last
slouch toward america to be born
copyright (c) 2014 ron whitehead
