دیروز در آن سوی پردهی خانه
در میان کوچهای که دیوارهای خراب آن را حصار کشیدهاند
سایهی زنی لُخت، عاری از پوشش، در چالهای از ابهام افتاده بود.ماشینها پاهای بیرون افتادهاش را زیر گرفتند...بچهها و توپشان لگد کردند دستهایش را
و در آخر گربهی مُردنی کور چشم، روی سرش شاشید.نمیدانم جهت خانهی آوار شدهمان کدام است؟
جنوبی یا شمالی!جنازهاش را خورشیدهای کسوف زده به بازی میگرفتند
یا بود... یا نبود.پزشک قانونی اظهار کرد: سایه مُرده است.چند ساعت قبل از رفتن زن
شاهدها او را دیده بودند:با پوشش عجیب عاری از زنانگی
موهای تراشیده،
کلاه پسرانه،
و شلواری مردانه.
"تیتر اول اخبارهای امروز"دیروز علیه سایهی زنی اقدام نظامی شُد
دیروز سایهی زنی به خاطر همکاری با سایههای خیالی کشته شُد
دیروز ظهر سایهی زنی که نامهی اعتراف به خودکشی در دست داشت، پیدا شُد.
"اطلاعیه"این سایه متعلق به کیست؟ از جسم او مدتهاست که خبری نیست!خبر فوری: خطر همهگیری مُردنِ "سایهها"
Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin
Invade our souls and rack our flesh; we feed
Our gentle guilt, gracious regrets, that breed
Like vermin glutting on foul beggars' skin
Our sins are stubborn; our repentance, faint
We take a handsome price for our confession
Happy once more to wallow in transgression
Thinking vile tears will cleanse us of all taint
On evil's cushion poised, His Majesty
Satan Thrice-Great, lulls our charmed soul, until
He turns to vapor what was once our will
Rich ore, transmuted by his alchemy
He holds the strings that move us, limb by limb
We yield, enthralled, to things repugnant, base
Each day, towards Hell, with slow, unhurried pace
We sink, uncowed, through shadows, stinking, grim
Like some lewd rake with his old worn-out whore
Nibbling her suffering teats, we seize our sly
delight, that, like an orange—withered, dry—
We squeeze and press for juice that is no more
Our brains teem with a race of Fiends, who frolic
thick as a million gut-worms; with each breath
Our lungs drink deep, suck down a stream of Death—
Dim-lit—to low-moaned whimpers melancholic
If poison, fire, blade, rape do not succeed
In sewing on that dull embroidery
Of our pathetic lives their artistry
It's that our soul, alas, shrinks from the deed
And yet, among the beasts and creatures all—
Panther, snake, scorpion, jackal, ape, hound, hawk—
Monsters that crawl, and shriek, and grunt, and squawk
In our vice-filled menagerie's caterwaul
One worse is there, fit to heap scorn upon—
More ugly, rank! Though noiseless, calm and still
yet would he turn the earth to scraps and swill
swallow it whole in one great, gaping yawn
Ennui! That monster frail!—With eye wherein
A chance tear gleams, he dreams of gibbets, while
Smoking his hookah, with a dainty smile. . .
—You know him, reader,—hypocrite,—my twin
My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once
I should employ the rake and the plow
Having reached the autumn of ideas
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees
And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies
—O Sorrow—O Sorrow—Time consumes Life
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part
I have done it again
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade
My right foot
A paperweight
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy
Do I terrify——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman
I am only thirty
And like the cat I have nine times to die
This is Number Three
What a trash
To annihilate each decade
What a million filaments
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees
I may be skin and bone
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman
The first time it happened I was ten
It was an accident
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all
I rocked shut
As a seashell
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls
Dying
Is an art, like everything else
I do it exceptionally well
I do it so it feels like hell
I do it so it feels real
I guess you could say I’ve a call
It’s easy enough to do it in a cell
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put
It’s the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout
‘A miracle
That knocks me out
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes
So, so, Herr Doktor
So, Herr Enemy
I am your opus
I am your valuable
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek
I turn and burn
Do not think I underestimate your great concern
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap
A wedding ring
A gold filling
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air