at 3.15 soldiers, investigators & officials
pursuant to the instructions of Superintendent Offley
there are differences between countries in the world of multiple classes
I no longer believe in the accuracy of my own
greasy light of the cellar steps, sweat
at last it has come to this: bread, dust, the artillery
there is the cool consolation where as for me
but as the flesh fell from his face
blindly believing concrete truths, absolute & release
never rise the dreamers on desires of the fathers
that she came to me in my captivity
each morning I go down to breakfast hoping
it is not breaks the second instruction
long noble massage of hands brow
the bone is pulled out, the eye which is dented atrophies,
& when I had made an end of speaking these words
this Esdras went up from Babylon as a scribe
& they feasted with instruments of music & of gladness
& roasted the Passover with fire as appertaineth
& such a Passover was not kept in Israel since
the time of the prophet Samuel; as for the house
of the Lord they burnt it, & brake down the walls of Jerusalem
& set fire upon her towers, now if this city
& the walls thereof be re-made they will also rebel
against kings for ye have defiled your hands with blood
the evil is sown but the destruction is not yet come
& we are not better than they that there did die
they that dwell upon the earth may understand nothing
& as for the truth it endureth as is always strong
for the world has lost his youth & the times wax old
bent writing, assiduous pen in hand,
beard unknowing as mine, a man
dead decades before underlies
by one eighth my genesis
in a twilight era from rabbinical composition
under secular thought logic
to weigh the weight of fire
pioneer of mill-ground clothworkers
farmers in a barrier of road escape
from hard land sweaty life, heretic
suffers no holy writ gladly
in vernacular of old places, the family left
to control of the secret police & he returns
pose, the unknowable, Minsk 1907
radicalism is not your mistake
your tub is a poison & the stink of later
is very deep dark & all unseen
the name of a flower is the name
of something else, respected citizens
First Guild merchant of hereditary noble
it is difficult to dismiss corrupt ideas
Thermidor & the rotten smell exuded
a moral concern for the betterment of all
when conflict between leaders & location
each side accusing the other of conspiracy
of the revolution’s betrayal
the privileges are granted bourgeois experts
& tillers per plant from the soil & stood as one
for them many living on the earth
the sway of famine & those that flee
destroy the sword; the dead will be deported
as dung, unmourned, for the earth be desolate sorrow,
threw down the cities, would no one be left
even to the laying of the ground, will give fruit trees
& who will pick? grapes will ripen
& who walk on them? Adam we will see
as another to hear his voice, is the city
will be televised on ten & two in the field, hidden
in the thick woods & in crevices of stone;
as olives cling to a tree through winter,
a few shall remain living witness to the sword search
& machineguns distort the house of prayer
our psaltery is laid down on the land,
our song for silencing, joy in an extremity,
our light of candle out, the coffer of our ruined obligation
depending on the refuge of our contracts
become useless holy things & the column you marched;
the name we tell are rottenly used, the children
placed with us in shame; our priest is burnt,
our Levites in captivity virgins are,