by Nina Corwin

 

                                     Whitman v J Edgar Hoover

 

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume...

                                                                                   

           

...I believe in you my soul and Propaganda,

the other I am must REDACT itself      to you,
And you Redact to the other.

Censor me on the grass, Lock on your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme Expunged From The Record

...only the lull, the hum of your Surveilling.

            ...how once we lay such a Blasphemous summer
     morning,
How you settled your head athwart my Profanity and

gently turn'd
    Suspect upon me,
And Redacted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and

Redacted your
    UNGODLY tongue to my Redacted heart,
And reach'd till you felt my WICKED WICKED

WICKED.

Swiftly censored me illegible
     that pass all the GARBLED of the earth,
And I know that the word of God is Obfuscation

And I know that the spirit of God is Communist Threat,
And that all the men ever born SUSPECT, and the
     women SUSPECT,

And that a Redaction of the Redaction is Redacted
And limitless are leaves Expunged from the field,

...and mossy scabs of the Redacted, heap'd stones,

Garbled, ILLEGIBLE,
   White out...

 

 

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with Redacted
     hands,
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any
     more than he.