10 OCTOBER 1970, Page 24

Written on the road of cemeteries leading to the airport

at Vienna I see American poetry with red claws conquering the world.

It makes a Vietnam in the Pushkin industry.

It calls the sonnet Robert Bly.

Somewhere under the fingers of Galway Kinnell James Wright Anne Sexton an old man rusts in a bottle.

The revolution starts in his breathing: One two, one two Forgotten balloons are inflated with names like pantoum. A hundred poets rise as one towards the black mountains.

Bombs are in their hands, elegant pieces of sugar from Little Rock.

They drive American poetry back to the wigwams where an old Indian rusts in an elk-horn.

The revolution starts in his breathing: one two, one two I see European poetry with red claws conquering the world.

It makes a Vietnam in the Whitman industry.

It calls free verse Adrian Henri.

Write the rest for yourself.