Everything is new.
No urban night
is like any night anywhere.
Dear Ezra,
I heard you scream over the
radio. Wartime and everything.
You damned the desert, Yehudah,
they say. Damned the synagogue
listeners in Aleinu. The path of
travels across the earth,
each step.
And I was young,
And I did not understand.
I've paid homage to your pen, you sharp voice.
"The better craftsman." I admit too.
II. Judea Declares War on Germany, 1933
In the grass by the lake one son lies,
pallor layered, paler,
paler, by wind,
and it is raining now, we move on,
no one's fault, kid.
Crouch among the deaf tallgrass and speak,
the chaste land will take our sin -
Imah would speak, when I was little,
"beat your swords into plowshares
and spears to pruning hooks.
Isaiah two. Three and four."
and I laxed my youth-addled fist.
Peter easy able charlie easy, brother.
I hear the murmur too,
Their fire approaches,
"incoming! incoming! incom
sugar how able love oboe mike
III. Night at Camden Arms After Coming Home
straggled into Camden Town, feeling alright and Ma's
up and left north to Holloway so I felt sick; in Arms,
swore I saw Fawcett. I saw Julian in the pond again,
Eli, broken, in dreadful arid fields.
sat with the old keep, running gray, clacked some bones
and thought of Pa with his brass set, lost in a bet and
beat me that night. keep plays spinners, two-two,
four-four, cocked his head high and sneered: "its
over." I turned: "so?"
and he: "Henri's dead."
"And I am not."
had enough left for board,
dreamt but couldn't sleep -
Lewis's shop.
behind me coursed a streak
of puce and tan.
IV. Every Quiet Morning
After Holloway, up to Muswell,
Ma said, to quiet. Fed her
porridge in the mornings,
listened to the box, took
a job at market.
Shut up, Pound,
despicable anti-semite,
shaking your fist at lands
shrouded in powder-smoke
and misted in blood-scent.
Oh, Jules, your grave
is stagnant water and mud,
oh, Eli in sanguine grass,
oh, Henri, your brush.
benedicat tibi Dominus
et custodiat te,
illuminet Dominus faciem
suam super te et
misereatur tui.
Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina.
