Eugene Debs Reads Marx in Prison

1895

 

like Malcolm, memorized the dictionary.

 

Nature does not produce4 subjugated

steps. every eve he’d walk the yard

breathing beneath night’s curtain.

the free sky etched into his head. on the one side

owners of money or commodities, on the other men

possessing nothing but their own labour-power

contemplating ways to counter empire.

in midnight’s throne, this relation has no natural basis.

like the imagination, the heavens spread

common to all historical periods, pages lit

by moon turn. liberated from these walls

he’ll walk, waving a new, red banner.