Write your banner heads in blood
Dripping, defecating on the printed page
Of your loud clarion!

I shall not chide you:
"Would you offer moths and rust?"

Damn your free corruption all to hell!
I know the words that live,
And they are not the pallid screechings
Of your circulation-conscious pen.
They are hidden words, the "filling tripe"
That you can't bear to waste your bold face type upon!
The little stories, signals to a wary, waiting people
Who have doomed your proudest scoops,
Lasciviously written, to ignored oblivion.

The waiting people wait, and one day
You are overwhelmed.
"What's this? No blood... no axe,
And yet, a banner head is warranted!"
The waiting people formed a small committee...
And the banner head is there... and the
Circulation mounts!

*This poem was written much later than the others. It refers to an editor at the newspaper where she worked around 1955-56.