Stakhanovich in The Library

It's eating at the coal face,
A rough swipe across the mouth,
And the scran goes down easily,

Perhaps not satisfied enough,
You lean back against hard rock,
Stealing sleep from the company,

Ten minutes of production,
Up the wall, gone forever,
A notch in the five-year plan,

Comforted that days later,
Some poor Apparatchik,
Will get it loudly in the neck,

Or more likely will fake it,
Rounding off his figures,
With a guess or two,

Standing tall with Laskier,
With Feng and all the other,
Poster-boys of revolution,

This evening is austerity,
In the eternal low wattage,
Of grime and leaks and rot,

But we have civilization,
Present in the dusty shelves,
Plato stalks the corridor,

Like a hawk of the high lands,
Its shadow swift across the ground,
Stealing knowledge from the party,

The drip of density, of science.
Always undisputed on the page,
Lies still and true for ever,

Fight fiercely in your sleep,
The mind will always know itself,
Facts are facts, and love is love,