University of Virginia Library

Poetic Prose

Then he closed with two paragraphs
that came close to the
nuance and music of poetry:

"The President talks of peace,
but the war and the draft go on.
Commitments have been renewed,
but a man, and perhaps a movement,
lie dead in Atlanta. And in
our cities it is almost summer
again.

"So I think you had better
keep moving. I think you had
better demand more than what you
have gotten so far, until America
comes home again."

The students stood and clapped
for 90 seconds, just clapped, without
stomping or screaming,
or doing anything contrived. Then
they followed the Mayor out to
his car. Boys with green and blue
McCarthy buttons and Radcliffe
girls in mini-skirts shouted out embarrassed
pleas that he run for
President as his car began to pull
away.

***

During some distant summer,
John Lindsay will probably be
running for President. But right
now he is trapped between the
fantasy he can personally cool
the ghetto indefinitely, and the
reality of projects and services
being cut in Albany and Washington.

Lindsay's staff and family say
that he sometimes wakes up in
the middle of the night, and half
awake, calls police headquarters
to be reassured that all is tranquil.
Some hot night he may be
told that the fire has come to
New York this time. But if that
night ever comes, Lindsay will
understand that it is Earl Brydges
and Anthony Travia who should
be indicted for inciting that riot,
and not Stokely or Rap.