Lawrence Hall, HSG
Awkward Adolescent
Verse
Poetry…
The
authority of empires, driven mad,
Threatened
it so many times,
But
it was the rulers who perished
-Yevtushenko, “Poetry is a Great Power”
They stole his boots even before he died
And scavengers have eaten out his eyes
His flesh and blood commingle with the mud
His rotting hands still claw the earth, the pain
A dime-store notebook, shredded with his heart
Once pencilled with his awkward, juvenile lines
Of undeveloped images and clumsy rhymes
Which will not be shaped and sharpened in this world
Among young bodies rats squabble and hiss -
Someone will be given a peace prize for this
