Bastille Day – Georgetown 
Not wanting to deny, I
believed it. Not wanting
to believe it. I denied
our Bastille Day. This,
is nothing to storm. This
fourteenth of July. With
my own eyes I saw the fierce
criminal passing for citizen
with a weapon, a piece of wood
and five for one. We laugh
Bastille laughter. These are
not men of death. A pot
of rice is their foul reward.
I have at last started
to understand the origin
of our vileness, and being
unable to deny it, I suggest
its nativity.
In the shame of knowledge
of our vileness, we shall fight.
Martin Carter
After One Year
[. . .]
But in your secret gables real bats fly
mocking great dreams that give the soul no peace,
and everywhere wrong deeds are being done.
Rude citizen! Think you I do not know
that love is stammered, hate is shouted out
in every human city of this world?
Men murder men, as men must murder men
To build their shining governments of the damned.
Martin Carter
July 14 is Bastille Day, celebrated with much pageantry and ceremony in France and known throughout the world. It has a particular place in history because of its significance to political dictatorship, tyrannical rule as well as revolution and liberation. For the French, it is the anniversary of the overthrow of a long period of absolute monarchy.