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Robert Kern
In the summer of 1968
I became a vegetarian.
Reasons: 1) To become plantlike.
2) To stop consuming.
3) To live like a member of the Third World.
4) To do it.
I did it
making friends among bushes and trees
frowning on porkchops in the supermarket
denying the environmental pressures
plunking down roots in the earthly sources
attaching myself to the ground
loving the rain
drawing toward the sun.
Enter, the merciless sponge of the System
the wilderness going down
It is very late.
I must be disturbing everyone
with my typing.
A shoe
comes in the window.
A nice shoe.
It seems to be
smiling at me.
I'll keep it.
When do I fall asleep?
Now the police come.
I am accused of disturbing
the peace. Neighbors
stand in the door.
I get the shoe.
Holding it
I WAS a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — I asked
why men die for words.
I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are :
Mother, Home, and Heaven — other older men with
face decorations said : God, Duty, Immortality
— they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.
Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup and nuts : meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.
And I met a marine of the U. S. A., a leatherneck with