The Immediate Aim

by Louis Zukofsky

1

Other than propaganda-

a police dog sniffs one;
a German police dog
not responsible for Naziism?
One is not sweet on him.

When one does not love animals,
one's concern is not respect.

Workers
you could
take time off
this March morning

trot out
like this police dog

ambling critic
of spring

(the curse of the verse on him!)

might make bare your eyes
to the white gull
astigmatically a launch

since it sits, distant
in the middle of the river:

your value which enslaves you
in advance
has made your eye-pupils limited-

inanity
to prate
the injustice of it.

2

Can dogs
argue
injustices

Dogs in a vise
and a wood saw
can saw an anatomy
of dog

Such as you never saw.

If it yowls
shut the eyelid on a bad dream,
let not the snarls take,
With its virus in you
You are immune.

What hounds
you means to.
Not all woodsawyers
grow animal.

3

Shanty
on the river
with
one window

The unemployed
having
a home
has no home

and no nag
protected
by
the United States' flag-

each animal
his own gravedigger
almost
sings

who will
walk out
against
the

social
and political
order of
things





Last updated April 28, 2023