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The Due D’Aumal’s cannonballs Are being marshmellowed 370 years from their masonic inception Now lie on the Potomac The Due D’Aumal’s balls cannonaded Split Through mirror teeth Washington D.C. Black City of white rectangular bits of fear Blown fluff of fear O the Duke of Aumal’s balls are raging Yellow vermin white houses of fear And beautiful funky people Diamond heart D’Afrique Human blood human need Black booming emotional vibes of life White geometry of abstract cerebral death I really saw at Fort McNair In front of American General’s mansion A fir-tree tied down to a black coffiny box Jefferson’s phantom always rides tonight There’s a solar splendor burst from Eighteenth-Century Cannon of the Due D’Aumal I’m sure Citizen Lafayette was no dixiecrat

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, And there is traffic in it and many a horse and cart, But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me, And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart. A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o’er the hill, And there is glory in it and terror on the wind, But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still, And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind. The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way, Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal, But the Little Waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray, And the Little Waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

Somebody’s baby was buried to-day— The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back, And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way, And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden track. Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest, White as a snowdrop, and fair to behold, And the soft little hands were crossed over the breast, And those hands and the lips and the eyelids were pressed With kisses as hot as the eyelids were cold. Somebody saw it go out of her sight, Under the coffin lid—out through the door; Somebody finds only darkness and blight All through the glory of summer-sun light; Somebody’s baby will waken no more. Somebody’s sorrow is making me weep: I know not her name, but I echo her cry, For the dearly bought baby she longed so to keep, The baby that rode to its long-lasting sleep In the little white hearse that went rumbling by. I know not her name, but her sorrow I know; While I paused on the crossing I lived it once more, And back to my heart surged that river of woe That but in the breast of a mother can flow; For the little white hearse has been, too, at my door.

(To John Gawsworth) The rose of all the world is not for me. I want for my part Only the little white rose of Scotland That smells sharp and sweet—and breaks the heart.

At the Oriental Institute, Chicago They redid King Tut splendid, once stone-huge as this yet his wife’s feet tiny, the only thing of her now low, next to him. A few toes, some of the rest, a bit of ankle, that’s it in the shade of her husband’s looming, massive looking straight ahead into the future where we live and can’t eye-to-eye, where to stare at him is to suffer warbler neck, head back and up à la the high just-leafing-out trees as bright bits wing their blink and hide. Little wife, such small feet, the thought dwarfs the king as ache, as what is ever left of us and oh, I like her better.

Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord, Who was the Future, died full long ago. Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go, Poor child, and be not to thyself abhorred. Around thine earth sun-wingèd winds do blow And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword; The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord And the long strips of river-silver flow: Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours. Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight About their fragile hairs’ aërial gold. Thou art divine, thou livest,—as of old Apollo springing naked to the light, And all his island shivered into flowers.

¿are you on the other side waiting for alarms in a desert of sleepless evaporations? ¿are you beside yourself in the aisles that distance makes shorter than light waves in the daylight that pounds a lead slab in the soup that the winter dissolves? ¿are you the signal that another plane carves into wings in rounded contusions of a late afternoon storm, full of sparks that the night hurries out on Locust and serial cheeks shrouded in shiny costumes? ¿are you a circle like juntas that the winter makes clear on the shaved orbiting molecule that the ear revolves around, in a retreat of explosive fossils? ¿are you memorizing the connections between the hand and the foot and the torso in reverse of the automatic? ¿are you materializing the unknown without weather to increase the planet otherwise? ¿are you pocketing the insurance claims that parkas and snow equips with sutures and hand grenades? ¿forever? ¿are you increasing the tackle box full of piers to widen the sea and shorten circuits full of trees? ¿are you feeding the unworn through a parallel shapelessness in desert blooms on the roots of a tarp milking masks? ¿are you remodeling the world as a breathing action doll? ¿are you calm for knots like the guardian hell that a sewer makes for angels in their last testimony skewered like the pony was? ¿are you freezing in the open course that half of everything enumerates like clouds? ¿are you unwound in a fear that a jacket stores for feed, in easy shows and rented faces on the pain of entry? ¿are you good like ovens?

Stand up carcass and walk Nothing new under the yellow sun The last of  the last of  the louis d’or The light that separates under the skins of  time The lock in the heart that shatters A thread of  silk A thread of  lead A thread of  blood After these waves of  silence These tokens of  love in black horsehair The sky smoother than your eye The neck twisted with pride My life in the corridor From which I see the undulating harvests of death All those greedy hands kneading loaves of smoke Heavier than the pillars of  the universe Heads empty Hearts bare Hands scented Tentacles of  the monkeys who aim at the clouds Among the wrinkles of  these grimaces A straight line tightens A nerve twists The sea sated Love The bitter smile of  death

Lots of time, lots of cars, Lots of money, so much love, Very cold and very hot. But now it’s freezing out, The director Lanzmann is giving us an interview, Without, it must be said, Much passion. This man was intimate with Simone de Beauvoir And worked alongside Sartre. But that’s later. For now Channel One Is filming him en face In the next room And we can make out A few scattered remarks. His nine-hour film About the Holocaust Played in every Country — People nodded off, And in their dreams They saw the horrors And the voice of our famous guest Faded in and faded out. It fades in, fades out, In the hall The beautiful Camilla comes and goes. She perches on the sofa Then she walks away. The assistant to the cultural attaché Of the French Embassy Is also here. She’s the one Who signed up me and Kolya For this interview with Lanzmann. She’s also beautiful and young. A little older than us But she looks younger. Whereas me and Kolya, We don’t want to look younger. One of us is thirty-three, The other’s thirty-four. Not yet at the peak Of our powers, We’re gathering force And preparing to strike. We’re like Lanzmann Who at the age of eighteen Joined the French Communist Party. He joined not because He read Marx or Lenin But because he was asked By his friends In the Resistance. We are like Lanzmann Who cried when he learned Of the death of Stalin. He cried not because He loved Stalin But because he was Sentimental: He saw Soviet Sailors Lowering their flags to half-mast, And thought about how The Soviet people Had absorbed, During the war, The most terrible And frightful blows. We are like Lanzmann Who in 1949 Made the acquaintance Of Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir. He began to work with them On the magazine Les Tempes modernes. And today he is That publication’s Editor in chief. We are like Lanzmann Who in 1972 Made the film Israel, Why, Which, in the words Of the online encyclopedia, “Did not shy away from Difficult questions.” We discussed all our questions In advance of the interview. Inside us it was as if Some keys, cold and hot, Were rattling. It’s nearly freezing out. Meanwhile I was thinking about how Kolya is a rude artist. In the sense that There are radical artists Everywhere you look, But not so many Genuinely rude artists. The rudeness of an artist, I thought, Is an interesting quality. But now Channel One is leaving, Kolya takes off his jacket with its skulls And sets up our cameras. “We are the representatives of the left,” we say. Lanzmann lowers his gaze wearily: Now they’re going to start in about Israel. But Kolya, having explained a bit About his art collective, Asks Lanzmann instead About monumental Art: “Monumental Art. What might it look like Right now?” “How should I know?” Says Lanzmann. “There could be no Monumental Art Today. The world is scattered. For A monumental Work you need A unified sense Of the world.” “But you yourself Filmed a monumental Work. Surely you have Some ideas on this score?” “I didn’t think about That. I’m an artist, Understand? I don’t Think in such Categories. What are you, Communists? Your task is The Revolution. Why are you asking Me about Monumental Art?” We’re the ones asking the questions We’re the ones asking the questions We here are the ones asking the questions. In the iron air Of Moscow. Edelman, Markelov, Pechersky are with us. Medvedev the Bear Jew and Jeff “The Snowman” Monson — That’s what they call us Around town. “In what capacity Did you make that film — As a Frenchman, a Jew, An intellectual? Or as a member Of the Resistance?” “I repeat, I wanted    ...    ” • “Does the term The ‘Holocaust Industry’ Mean anything to you?” “What’s that?” Asks Lanzmann. (I warned Kolya That Lanzmann wouldn’t Understand Or would pretend Not to understand What that means.) “The Holocaust Industry Usually means The use of the memory Of the destruction of the Jews During World War II To legitimate, in part, The State of Israel.” The translator starts To worry. She suspects us Of anti-Semitism. But we are like Lanzmann Who came to Moscow To do this strange interview, Without revealing his secrets. He won’t talk, He’s hard as a rock, This man whose youth Is reflected In our cocky Faces. Lanzmann himself has conducted Many interviews: With Franz Suchomel, The SS Unterscharführer, With  Jan Karski, And others. He knows very well How to walk His subjects Into this or that Confession Or experience, All while leveraging His moral authority. And here, gradually, In the words of this master Of the interview, We begin to detect The artistic position Which we so oppose. “I, you know, just Slapped together this Thing. I was interested In the human aspect. As for ideas And theories That’s not my bag.” • Of course, many artists Take this stand. They don’t interest us at all. But Lanzmann, on the one hand, Enjoys this status As an artist who works with Emotions, memories, His own and other people’s Experiences, that is, more with Emotions than with documents. On the other hand, he knew Full well that his film Would be received As a political proclamation, That it would quickly occupy the heart Of intellectual and socio- Political debates. To work on people’s feelings, As an artist, while at the same time Refusing to engage in rational Explanations, of the sort Demanded of intellectuals — really This is the same stuff as using the “Incomprehensibility” of Hitler Or the destruction of the Jews As a form of political argument — And this is the shameful Hypocrisy of our friend Lanzmann. How to save himself From this disgrace The old man Lanzmann Does not know. But we know, and we’ll tell: You need to speak about Israel You need to speak about Israel In this is the key to immortality This is the burning wound And it is Lanzmann who understands this He knows that politics is the wound On the body of history. An unnecessary, unwanted wound That will not heal. To refuse to forget politics To refuse to tear Israel From one’s heart — Because politics is Always here, And Palestine is a bloody wound that says: Politics is Always here. You can’t hide from it At the supermarket, You can’t run from it With beautiful words. And old man Lanzmann Understands this, He knows that Politics is the wound On the body of history. In its inability to process its own Information, A rejection of politics Leads to senility. (Only later would I find This passage In an interview Lanzmann gave To Der Spiegel: Spiegel: You write That the Israeli military doctor Who gave you a check-up Before you flew in a fighter plane Said you could live Until a hundred and twenty. Are you worried about Death right now, At your age? Lanzmann: I have no age. I constantly think Of death, including My own. At the same time This remains totally Unreal. As I said Earlier, only life Has any meaning.) • “Does the term The ‘Holocaust Industry’ Mean anything to you?” “I don’t want To talk About Israel. I repeat: You are thinking In abstract Categories.” “Yes, but your film Became the center Of intellectual Debate — About the uniqueness Of the Holocaust, About the supposed Anti-Semitism Of the Poles. Many Thought that your movie Made the Poles out To be Anti-Semites.” “Israel exists Under impossible Pressure. Its army must be judged According to different measures. The Israeli Merkava tank Was created In impossible conditions. Israeli tank officers Love their Merkavas, They are obliged To have them always At the ready. And you, instead of Building up Abstract Theories, Should try harder To create artistic works ... An artist has his own Way of seeing.” And so on. The director is tired. It’s time for a rest. “Communists? I know your path. First, revolution; then firing squads.” A warning from the attaché — Our time Is almost up. This will be Our last question And our judgment of the gray Old man Will be simple. He has just one moment left To die young. But what did the fog of those eyes Communicate? Vague sentence fragments, A dry, unpleasant refusal? • “Hang in there, boys. Be strong just one more time. Communists never surrender.” Translated from the Russian

(for Seamus Heaney) First time out I was a torc of gold And wept tears of the sun. That was fun But they buried me In the earth two thousand years Till a labourer Turned me up with a pick In eighteen fifty-four. Once I was an oar But stuck in the shore To mark the place of a grave When the lost ship Sailed away. I thought Of Ithaca, but soon decayed. The time that I liked Best was when I was a bump of clay In a Navaho rug, Put there to mitigate The too god-like Perfection of that Merely human artifact. I served my maker well — He lived long To be struck down in Denver by an electric shock The night the lights Went out in Europe Never to shine again. So many lives, So many things to remember! I was a stone in Tibet, A tongue of bark At the heart of Africa Growing darker and darker . . . It all seems A little unreal now, Now that I am An anthropologist With my own Credit card, dictaphone, Army-surplus boots And a whole boatload Of photographic equipment. I know too much To be anything any more; And if in the distant Future someone Thinks he has once been me As I am today, Let him revise His insolent ontology Or teach himself to pray.