Political Poem

By Amiri Baraka

(for Basil)

Luxury, then, is a way of

being ignorant, comfortably

An approach to the open market

of least information. Where theories   

can thrive, under heavy tarpaulins   

without being cracked by ideas.

(I have not seen the earth for years   

and think now possibly “dirt” is   

negative, positive, but clearly

social. I cannot plant a seed, cannot   

recognize the root with clearer dent   

than indifference. Though I eat

and shit as a natural man ( Getting up   

from the desk to secure a turkey sandwich   

and answer the phone: the poem undone   

undone by my station, by my station,   

and the bad words of Newark.) Raised up   

to the breech, we seek to fill for this   

crumbling century. The darkness of love,

in whose sweating memory all error is forced.

Undone by the logic of any specific death. (Old gentlemen   

who still follow fires, tho are quieter   

and less punctual. It is a polite truth   

we are left with. Who are you? What are you   

saying? Something to be dealt with, as easily.

The noxious game of reason, saying, “No, No,   

you cannot feel,” like my dead lecturer   

lamenting thru gipsies his fast suicide.