The clash and clamor of steel-plates ;
The evil rattle of steel-cranes.
I am deaf with the bellowing of monsters which feed on
men. They belch their smoke against the resentful sky And below, in the steam, I see men naked, sweating like the damned ; Grimy alchemists, with wan, smutted faces. Who dully change dull iron to dull gold.
TRUTH: Slaves to the demons which they guide.
POET:
An iron world without a soul;
The patient sky above waiting ;
The patient men below waiting ;
The blue sky above forever listening, inviting, expectant ;
The tired men below forever listening, hopeful, expectant ;
The flaming sun above ordering abundance ;
The flaming hell below denying enough ;
Forever clamoring; forever devouring;
Devouring the men who are mates for mothers;
Fathers, steel-muscled, broad-chested, dominant ;
The women, mothers of children ;
The innocent children with white bodies, fluent,
Morning glories bearing the
Seeds of the unknowable Future.
Mothers, undulant, flexible ; crypts of the ages ; alabaster
vessels of life. In the dim dawn, before the whistles command, I see an army, ever hungry, never full ; They bend gray faces above their pauper bowls, And suck up eagerly Starvation's dole.
TRUTH: Your brothers, whom you have disinherited; Your sisters, whom you have destroyed.
3a
