Let Us Have Madness

By Kenneth Patchen

Let us have madness openly.

         O men Of my generation.

         Let us follow

         The footsteps of this slaughtered age:

         See it trail across Time's dim land

         Into the closed house of eternity

         With the noise that dying has,

         With the face that dead things wear—

         nor ever say

         We wanted more; we looked to find

         An open door, an utter deed of love,

         Transforming day's evil darkness;

         but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,

         and within the head

         A rotting bog of lean huge graves.