Variation One
The Pirate
draws blood from stone
or brilliancethat a paper bag
conceals
men on a journey
who can spy their lord
in stones & rocks
their eyes askew
grown blue & hardlike glass or ice
lose colors
pale or shining
silver as the seamight look from heaven
robots riding high
another journey starts
the pilgrimlike an iron man
breaks thru the snow
the lord’s flag
rises overheadabove the garden
laughter rises too
a voice calls
from a paper bagblue snow
cold iron
ice within an inch
of where they wanderstone & iron
sounding in a dream
(2)
at the moment when he rose
the sand turned gold
then green
then gold again
the grey light
made the gold grow palethe world absorbed it
locked in a cabinet
so many centuries
of growthillumined by a candle
bound by iron wires
grains of light
(3)
how jewish is it
where the women
hold up candles
cash old clothes
where jews look out
beneath creased eyebrowssqueeze bent keys
against the corpse’s throat
laughter carried by
the wind a tonguethat wags & ceases
overcome by sleep
his heart has skipped
a beat his hairbound by a string
falls to his chest
over the dead we place
an awningflowers all around
no cash at hand
the system fails
& faltersleaving a smell behind
stale odors
basket like a casket
where the body liesold hands old fingers
jews & phantoms
a store awash with
phantom jews(4)
open the door & letthe sun flood in
& bathe the little town
inside its shell
the heaviness of dreams
at first a trickleswells & overwhelms
the sleeper
a body without
air & watercannot live or thrive
nor can a forest
inside a shell
glass skews the lighteach man a refugee
entombed in water
water fills their eyes
when light dies outthe false excursion ends
the air aflame
sight lost forever
in the sudden heatmen die from
specks of light
inside the shell
[Derived from "The Pirate," in J.R., The Gorky Poems / Poemas Gorky, El Corno Emplumado, Mexico, 1966]
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