Concerning a Victim (ME) of the Mid-Century Persecutions:

by Mitchell Chavis

In the early mornings I drafted petitions 
concerning my "unmemorable demise."

To the local Chamber of Commerce, Bob Taft,
the Demiurge of Americanism: Mickey Mantle

But mailed none.  

Beyond all the wrong turns of my life yet there was another twist.  
Mail couldn't be sent by someone who didn't exist.
I ate breakfast on these casual impossibilities.
It wasn't after all, my mind or sense of humor I'd lost 
but only my arcane vocation --Physicist

Freed from the gravity of theory, 
I've risen into a world without doubts
The right to experiment, it turned out, was a political gift, 
and one for which (as the newspapers put it) 
I was "particularly unfit"

"Dear Bob Taft,
This is to announce that I am no longer a man,
but have become something more real-- I am a fear."

By means of photographs, fingerprints and a few prosaic lies
I'd publicly been hypostatized.

My affinities became facts, I was faithless
like my data, I deserved to disappear.
I'd driven forklifts, worked the night shifts
and once for seven months tarred asphalt roofs with two Sicilians
who never spoke but to swear.

I'd learn about whatever I'd ever known, my senses remained my own
and I could tell the weather from the movement of the birds,
sleep out of doors, befriend stray dogs.
I knew which churches had soup and beds
and which fed you the kingdom-to-come
Suffering is the most spurious form of wisdom.

The world through which I ghosted went from one hell to another 
Those secrets I might have divined were gone
Who pulls your strings, those blue bastards?
Knowledge exists in relation to everything
And life is a sentiment that's easily set on fire.
  
Sometimes at night in my jailed room 
I thought of the precision of energy
Matter hissed with purpose
I dreamt of freedom... and sleep.

© 2002 Mitchell Chavis.  All Rights Reserved.