Dolls' faces are rosier but these were children
their eyes not glass but gleaming gristle
dark lenses in whose quick silvery glances
the sunlight quivered. These blenched lips
were warm once and bright with blood
but blood
held in a moist blob of flesh
not spilt and spatter'd in tousled hair.
In these shadowy tresses
red petals did not always
thus clot and blacken to a scar.
These are dead faces:
wasps' nests are not more wanly waxen
wood embers not so grely ashen.
They are laid out in ranks
like paper lanterns that have fallen
after a night of riot
extinct in the dry morning air.
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Comments
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where can this be found?
From guest J. Falcone (contact)
Does anyone know where a hard copy of this poem can be found in a book or collection? -
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For guest J Falcone
It may be in Read's own book Anarchy & Order; Poetry & Anarchism (1938).
Such a well known poem is also likely to be in many War anthologies.
However it is easy to create your own Hardcopy using thes ites inbuilt print option (link on the right hand side of the poem pages). All poems here are presumed to be Public Domain work.
Jim
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