Eugene V. Debs,
an American Beowulf, who was like both a
sacred covenant rainbow
for all the blue proletariat
and a
powerful electromagnetic storm
and struck fiercely against the
industrial money monsters who
were mute,
blind, stark and cold
to all colors of tears and as
brutal, bloodthirsty and beastly
as the Anglo-Saxon monster Grendel!
Strike like a prairie grass fire by the light of the Morning Star at dawn, or
Strike like a heat wave by the light of the scorching sun at noon, or
Strike like a hurricane by the reflective light of the full moon at midnight,
But strike, as passionately as you love to make love.
Strike
Strike
Photo caption: Labor leader Eugene V. Debs giving his famous 1918 anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, for which he spent two and a half years in federal prison.
–photo: courtesy Debs Museum. P.O. Box 843, Terre Haute IN 47808 www.eugenevdebs.com