THE SOLDIERS

"You have only to speak for once — they will melt like the dust:
you have only to spit in their faces — they will go
howling like devils to swindle somebody else

but if you choose to obey, we shall not blame you
for every lesson is new. We will make room for you
in the cold hall where every cause is just.

Perhaps you'll go with us to frosty windows
putting the same choice as the years go round
or sit debating 'When will they disobey?'

wrapped in our coats against the impartial cold."
All this I think the buried me would say,
clutching their white ribs & their rusted helmets

nationless bones, under the still ground.



— Alex Comfort, (1920-2000), excerpt



anarchist