EZRA POUND

Pounding on the table
with crazy economic theories
mocking the Jews
on fascist radio
in Rappalo,
praising the dictator
Mussolini,
whom the Italian people
will soon hang,
you read Cavalcanti
and your own cantos
until you are tried
and convicted of incitement
put into St.Elizabeth's
mental asylum in D.C.
and saved by Robert Lowell,
a pacifist who also drugged
beyond words,
two masterful poets
who try to step forward
into the daylight of uncertainty
without proscribed compassion.