Well versed

The smoky city is black and dark,
filled with bombed waste-land
and staring faces,
when morning comes, the birds,
like man, come to their own reality
and the little red buses crawl,
ever so slowly,
down the avenues of mystical stone.

Zodiacs and scarabs sing a horoscope.
Pain is staccato on the sand-filled brain,
and the face of glory is proud no longer.

I am an apple
on a plate,
full of taste
and delight.
Oh I am red,
red and wonderful:
contact my flavour
with your mouth.

About the poet

Geoffrey Hazard was one of the contributors to the celebrated Children of Albion anthology edited by Michael Horovitz and published in 1969. This new poem can be interpreted, especially in the last fragment, as an affirmation of his continuing communist doctrine.

John Rety of Hearing Eye Press and Torriano Meeting House is a former editor of anarchist paper Freedom.

www.torriano.org
www.hearingeye.org