Wheel With a Single Spoke (10 page)

Was he the word itself?

Is name word?

. . . He who is only “you,”

you and you and you and you,

who surrounds my name?

I.

The general came to me and said:

– You are the only one left who can do anything;

it's all up to you, whether we

will stay like this, or not.

. . . Soldiers were

all along the roads. And

a great, quiet rabble.

Not one was at ease.

Not one was at attention or ready

for attack, yet.

II.

What should I do? How? When? Where?

He pushed me slowly, between my shoulder blades,

into the field outside,

beside a withered maple sapling.

Here it was quiet,

and over the freshly ploughed terrain

suddenly,

from under the wide clouds at the other end,

came hurled at me

an apple.

III.

I wanted to dive and catch the apple

like a ball.

It would have been a mistake, –

they told me afterwards, the angels,

it would have been a mistake,

they told me afterwards

friends, family, military officers.

IV.

I ran to the apple,

and peeled its ring

like it was Saturn,

I ran to the apple

and peeled its

red band like it was

an old packet of good quality cigarettes.

V.

The apple broke in two, the worm

ran through my fingers into the earth;

it left by way of those furrows,

and beside the withered maple at my end

I grinned

like a drunk at the door of a bowling alley.

VI.

The general took me to the middle of the

restless soldiers,

along those narrow streets where they

were neither at attention nor at ease.

He took me there to be seen, he took me there

to calm them,

under dark clouds hanging

over the city with narrow streets and soldiers,

those strange soldiers, clean,

smelling of lavender,

neither quiet nor

unquiet,

with wide, glistening eyes,

resting their hands on their weapons;

at whom, they did not know

or in which direction

to open – fire.

VII.

I have only one more element

for you to defeat, the last one,

then we can escape and be, –

another way, we will be – but in another way . . .

said the general to me.

VIII.

Two, three, and four.

The second, third, and fourth battle

I cannot remember any more.

The general assured me that they

had nothing to do, at all, with words,

and thus nothing to do with either things

or our civilization.

The general assured me

that I had won the two,

three, four,

the second, third, fourth battle,

but as winner I had lost the right

to learn anything about the victims

or the battleground,

by rote or by heart,

under clouds or inside nerves.

The general gave as proof the fact that I am,

that he is,

that we are,

that they are,

that the city still existed, as we knew it.

The general told me that we

cannot praise ourselves with victory

of the second,

third, fourth,

because they have nothing to do with the domain

of communication,

the domain of comprehension,

OMPREHENSION . . .

MPREHENSION . . .

PREHENSION . . .

REHENSION . . .

EHENSION . . .

IX.

I understood that the battle

against the fifth element,

the definitive battle, would take place

on a street.

At that moment, the battle began.

– Move the walls, I said.

– Move the walls, I shouted,

and I moved all the walls from behind.

(The general held my shoulder

to keep me from having a wall at my back

so I was victorious.)

The general clapped my left shoulder

and I had no wall at my back,

just the general.

It, the one in front of me, it

ended up with no wall in back.

It, from the fifth antiterrestrial element,

having walls behind it,

ended up with no walls in back.

Because of the general and me,

it ended up with no walls in back.

All the houses on the street

I moved with a brusque gesture,

and it,

the fifth antiterrestrial element,

would have liked to move the other part

of the walls

of the street,

and it, the fifth,

would have liked to move the other part

of the street . . .

but the general clapped

my left shoulder

so I had no more walls in back of me;

it, the fifth,

could not imagine I was not in front of it,

but I simply walked the street

with the general in back of me.

That's how I could move all its walls from behind,

moving a Wall means

the death of the fifth element.

It fell, emaciated,

nothing in back of him,

noiseless

and orange.

It fell as though it had not been.

I moved its walls.

I moved its Wall.

X.

Tired, mired, perspired,

we walked with the general

through the soldiers.

They looked at us

and could not believe we had won.

They looked at us, the general

and me,

ready to fight.

They could not imagine our victory.

They could not believe

there was nothing left to fight for.

Their disbelief

wore on the general.

But the general, for some time,

like a wing of cinders hung

delicate,

from my spine.

XI.

Above me there was a voice:

– Beloved child,

you have square hands,

unstained by blood!

I.

I have no sky. What is far from me

am I, black, interior.

My sky is made of black flesh.

Buried sky.

I have no field. Its edges are burned.

It rises up like a palm

that claws its fingers together, into a fist.

I have only enough space for space to go numb

around me.

I inflate and deflate.

I inflate with foreignness

and deflate from loneliness.

I cannot advance.

The distance from me to me

is covered with death.

It abates,

the sensation of leaving yourself.

I am the one who guards the door

in case I try to run away.

II.

Blood comes in the dark

bearing illogical news, – cry

for it, O eye rolled back,

O ice, tip of the stalagmite.

So I suffocate in nuances –

angels, run unraveled over waters,

Byzantium, your wood is broken, brothers

on the mother's side, foreign on the father's.

When wood comes to power,

it will cut its root to start,

then its suckling leaves

and dentations

breaking light apart.

Ah, thus the only ah, thus inward

toward myself, from myself,

the furthest sky away is

nightfall's coastal shelf.

III.

I absorb the news that my right leg has departed.

I pour wisdom into the left,

idol of flesh, and smart.

Neither one is your friend,

neither two, neither no one . . .

Blood comes with the soul, just that:

Eat it, sister heart, eat it

yesterday and the day before.

IV.

Flee forward, always forward,

from the four holy chambers.

My gut is my friend, my ankle my parent,

the road has no return.

Blood speaks,

its valve, vein, artery,

the white bone inside speaks,

the viscera, the zither.

The cell speaks, the lymph speaks

the mobile brick of the tongue, –

the end of every bone will speak,

melting in the movement of nimbi, nimbus.

The Tower of Babel turned with its glove

inside out, –

heart, bedbug, mare, hetaera,

inside out . . .

Thus a pyramid

thus a pyramid

thus a pyramid

V.

My only prey is my life.

I can only lose my life.

Everything happens in my lifetime.

My heart defeats my blood

and then

my heart chases my blood away.

My blood inflates my heart.

My only prey is my life,

yes.

My only prey is my life.

All I can lose, all I can lose,

but who can say

what I may lose!? . . .

But what does “who” mean

or “to lose,” Lord

what is “to lose” – “loss”?

until the sword became my spine,

until a cloudlike body and the sliding

moment were enveloped in its shine.

That's why I put my temple to things, my ear

my eardrum, my what I am,

trying to sever it from its pair,

its shadow, the earthen dam.

But things will laugh in their own language

at my victory, its glory,

at reddened eyebrows, silent muscles,