I would sing the songs of the working stiffs, of the short-changed Joes, the born poor, the afflicted. I would gamble with the long-shot players who light candles in the wind, and resent with the pushed-around because of race or birth. Above all, I would fight for their causes on the screens of the world.
“O glance, when thou wast still as thou art now,
How hast thou set the fire
A-tremble in men’s veins; O lip curved high
To mind me of some urn of full delight,
O throat girt round of old with swift desire,
O palms of Love, that in your wonted ways
Not once but many a day
Felt hands turn ice a-sudden, touching ye,
That ye were once! of all the grace ye had
That which remaineth now
Shameful, most sad
Finds ‘neath this rock fit mould, fit resting place!”
Ezra Pound | “Her Monument, the Image Cut Thereon” (after Leopardi)