Can you find a copy of the poem I will not go back by Milton Geiger?

Answer 1

Answer:

try looking for a copy through the California artists radio theater under great radio writers

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Answer:

A version (the original?) of "I Will Not Go Back" by Milton Geiger is posted below, see related links:

It is part of an episode of the radio program called "This Is My Best" produced by Orson Wells on April 17, 1945, which marked FDR's passing.

Note that this a dramatization and not the monologue version performed later by folks like William Powell and Edward G. Robinson. If anyone has information on that version please post it.

This version probably is also a bit different from a version that apparently appeared in Scholastic Magazine in the early 70's which might be this:

The text in the first part of the program as far as I can tell is:

Over the concrete and the steel

Astride the mills and factories

The temples and the farms

The thunderous commerce of the city

The oceans and the rivers to the oceans

Over the hills, the mountains and the valleys of Earth

Over the fervent hush of the hopeful people

Watches a Spirit

I will not go back

Out of the mists of time

Out of the ancient yesterdays

The Spirit came

Out of the mists of time

Out of the ooze and slime

Out of the dreadful dawning

Out of the dim wet morning

Of the Earth, I came

And I will not go back

Now the Earth was without form

And void and darkness

Is on the face of the deep

In the beginning was the lands, untenanted

And there was the restless immemorial sea

There was the empty sky

And Silence

Time stood speechless

Among the blank and silent days

There was the infinite

There was eternity

And there was a plan

And reason

There was God

And then, then in the scheme of time

The sea that thundered

On the anoint shores

Sheltered a living jelly

In the dimples

Where the tidal waters gathered

Under the lifeless rocks

Something lived

Something swam and squirmed

And grew, and multiplied, elaborated, evolved

And after the unthinkable

Deliberation of the centuries

A thousand times compounded

It crept out of the sea

This was the beginning of the plan

Could it be-- Man?

And that was the second day

The rank proliferating earth

Misty and steaming

Swarmed with a monstrous progeny

Dragons dwelt on the reaking Earth

And had there moment

In the scheme of time

Then, back, back to the ooze

That spawned them

Went the armored giants

Power and brute force weren't enough

Armor and sinew

And the cruel clashing jaws

Had failed

The monsters went back

I will not go back

The third day passed

The fourth

the fifth

How many million years?

And I?

I was a bent and hairy thing

Savage and witless

Fleeing through jungle trees

Living my mindless life

Fighting my endless strife

Mating and dying

Beating my shaggy chest

Dancing in moonlight

Blazed with my brute brethren

Howling the moon

Ape that I was

Then, then-- something happened

I stood in a moonlit glade

Brute like the others

And lifted myself on my knuckles

Groaning and straining

I lifted myself

And the moons came endlessly

And endlessly went the moons

And the dark procession of the ages

Witnessed the dim yearning

Of the creature to be

More than creature--

Then-- Then I stood up!

The creature stood up

And the jungle rocked

And shuttered to its roar

And to the thunder of its fists

Upon its hairy breast

Til its comrades bared their yellow fangs

And growled

For they knew now that he was

Neither kin or comrade to them

Now or evermore

Loose and abysmal

I hid in the hostile earth

Fighting and fleeing

More hunted than hunting

Trailing the giant beaver

Clothing my nakedness

I followed the saber-toothed tiger

Taking for mine what was left of his kill

For the jungle was close

But I would not go back

I would not

I will not

I will not go back!

The flash of bronze

Was in the wilderness then

The rawhide bow string

And the singing arrow

Strummed the attendancy of man

Among the creatures

The great race moved

Across the yielding Earth

Wielding its fire

Brandishing the spear

The shepherd's crook

Some forgotten genius

Learned to speak with symbols

Carved on wood, on stone, on ivory, on bone

I wrote

Someone laid a shell upon the water

And spread skins and hides before the wind

And put a flat stick into the tide

I sailed the deep water!

He used the rock and lifted stone on stone

And fashioned wood above his head

I built!

And man looked up at the stars

And at the wheeling sun

And fell upon his knees

For in his groping brain

Kindled the fearful knowledge of the plan

And the one who planned

His Bronze became steel

But his weapons lifted against the jungle

Were lifted also against his kind

And lo, the blood of man

Ran in rivers to the sea

Thus it was written

And it came to pass

When they were in the fields,

That Cain rose up against Abel, his brother

And slew him

And the lord said unto Cain 'Where is Able, thy brother?'

And he said, 'I know not, am I my brother's keeper?'

And he said 'What hast thou done?

The voice of thy brother's blood cryuth unto me from the ground!'

Aye, for all his building

And his bronze

His ivory and steel

The jungle was close

I will not go back!

In the desert as it is written

A prophet went up upon the heights

Where thunders and lightnings

Sprang from the awful sky

And the great voice had utterance

Among the canyons of the crag

And palisades of Sinai

'Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not covet.'

The word came down

And the laws were ten

And this was the law for the children of men

And Moses the prophet

Came down from the mount

And So it was

So it is written

Until yet another set his gentle spirit

And his voice against the ready jungle

Yet another spoke for the goodness

And the glory

And the immortality of man

The pilots of the Galilean lake they said

"The Nazerean" they called him

And he spoke

And the jungle recoiled again

Yet man bred tyrants into the Earth

Nero, Caligula, the Inquisition

Tyrants and pain and blood

The jungle no less

I will not go back!

A council of men

Forced liberty from one tyrant

The Magna Carta

A handful of free men

crossed the perilous ocean

to be free

Another handful dared an empire

The horseman rode

From Charleston to Lexington

And farmers' muskets spoke that April day

For freedom

We hold these truths to be self-evident

They are self-evident

That all men are created equal

All men are equal

That they are endowed by their creator

With certain unalienable rights

Rights that among them are life

Life

Liberty

And the pursuit of happiness

Out of the wilderness I came

Beast into man

My flint and my bronze

And my bones are scattered over the earth

I am Plato and Socrates,

Michelangelo, Galileo,

Beethoven, Shakespeare, Dante,

Newton, Lincoln,

Confucius has taught

his simple goodness in my past

Who then has wrested the needless truth

Mohammad has journeyed to the mountain

The Nazarene has died for me

Warriors have fallen

And saints have risen in my time

I have charted the Oceans and the continents

I have measured the firmaments

And have grown closer to it

On recent wings

I fly!

I rhyme and reason

I write my music

And my words on

faith itself

I have conquered the plague

And the fevers of the body

And the fevers of the mind

And of the spirit

My neck is limber now

My back is straight

I do not cockle and look downward

Like the wild beast

I look up to the stars

And into the face of my fellow man

And I will not go back!

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Another version was printed in a literary magazine in the early 1970's:

I have the copy of the poem as it was published in a literary magazine for teens (I don't

remember the name of the magazine) around 1970. It is different, though similar, to the one

shared previously.

I Will Not Go Back by Milton Geiger

Out of the mists of time,

Out of the ooze and slime,

Out of the dreadful morning,

Out of the speechless dawning of the earth

I came,

And I will not go back!

"Now the earth is without form,

and void and darkness is upon

the face of the deep-"

Then-

Something happened.

The sea that thundered on the Azoic Shores

sheltered a living jelly!

Something...lived at last in the

Ancient ocean-squirmed in the

Tidal pools: live! Lived, grew,

Multiplied, evolved, lived!

Until-after the unthinkable

Deliberation of the ages-it-

crept-out-of-the sea.

The moons came endlessly and

Endlessly passed the moons.

An now?

Giants! Giants walked the waking world:

Monsters made monstrous war in

The rank swamp-world, cheek by jowl

Fang aainst living armor. War.

Then-

Back-back into the ooze

Descended the dinosaurs.

The monsters went back.

I WILL NOT GO BACK.

The eons came and the

Eons went-and I?

I was a bent and hairy thing,

Savage and witless,

Fleeing through jungle trees.

Living my lightless life.

Fighting my midless strife.

Mating and dying;

Dancing in the jungle glades

With my brute brethren,

Howling the moon-

Ape that I was!

Then-I stood up!

Rocked on my knuckles and

Thrust on the earth and I stood!

And the earth rocked to my roar!

And my former comrades yellowed their

Fangs at me and muttered their

Dim hate-for they knew that I was neither

Kin nor comrade to them now

Or evermore.

I hid in the hostile world, fighting

and fleeing.

More hunted than hunting;

Skulking the saber-tooth tiger to glean

For my belly what was left of

his kill.

NOW-the flash of my bronze was

In the wilderness, the chink

Of iron and the thrum of the

bowstring.

Then....

Out of the cave I came

Casting arrows before me!

Over the earth I moved

Wielding my fire:

Brandishing the spear-

And the shepherd's crook;

Crouching over skulls-

Where I pounded my grain.

I laid a shell on water

And caught the wind in skins.

I sailed!

I hewed mountains and

Put stone on stone-

I built!

Awed, I lifted my face to the stars

And realized a mystery.

I fell upon my knees-

For in my brain there now kindled

The awful knowledge of the plan-

And of the One Who Planned.

"But it came to pass when

They were in the field that Cain rose up

Against Abel and slew him. And the Lord

Said, 'What hast though done? The voice of thy

Brother's blood crieth unto me

From the ground!'"

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

THOUGH SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

THOUGH SHALT NOT HAVE ANY GOD BEFORE ME!

And more. And more.

The Word came down and

The laws were Ten,

And this was truth for the

Race of men.

And Moses came down from the

Mountain. So it was.

So it is written.

And still another set his voice

Against the ready jungle and

Spoke for the worth and the

Immortality of Man.

The pilot of the Galilean Lake,

The called Him, The Nazarene, they said.

Then Why?

Why then, does blood cateract

To the oceans?

Why is the sky filled with the rage of nations?

Why hatred and hunger and the

Wasting of the children and

The many scorning the few and

Scourging the different?

Why the frailty that makes fear

And the fear that makes arrogance?

Why ALL that suffocates the light within us

That is the answer to the light

And the blight

Of the patient graveworm?

And yet-

I am NOT IN VAIN!

Out of the wilderness I came.

Beast into man!

I have survived Holocaust and ruin

And every terror of creation.

My flint and my bronze lie

Scattered pole to pole.

From the speechless cavern to

The Kimmeridge clay

I have dared-and the

Wreckage of my daring

Is not all dust and folly.

I AM Man

I am Plato and Socrates,

Michelangelo, Galileo, Beethoven;

Curie, Dante, Newton-

Einstein, Shakespeare, Lincoln.

A man named king!

I reckon. I rhyme and reason.

I fly, I sing.

I have sent my caravels to the moon

And will yet fling frigates

to the stars!

I seek; I fail. And I seek again!

I am no shuffling ape-thing now!

I will not crouch again upon

My haunches in some atom-ordained cave,

Mumbling carrion bones.

I will not be jackle to the tiger again!

I have outlived the cavern

and the claw.

I am a thing of order and I know another

law

Than blood,

and a better prophecy for my kind

Than darkness and oblivion.

And I know-

I KNOW that the fearful fault

That is yet within me I will

Antidote with my reason

And my mercy

And my love,

Until the physician that

I must be to me

Has cured himself.

For if I fail...

IF I FAIL...

My neck shall bend again

To darkness; and the glimmer

I call my soul be ash.

And I and all my fearful wonders

Shall perish into silence

And my spirit walk ashamed

Among the ghosts of dinosaurs-

A craven, failed, and forgotten

Moment

In The Plan.

But I have traveled this far:

I have set my instruments upon a promise...

Out of the mists of time,

Out of the ooze and slime,

Out of the dreadful morning,

Out of the speechless dawning of the earth

I came,

And I will not go back!