A ghost of dead Romans.
A strange tree flowers
and is cut down.
Straight sidewalks, ancient dust.
A bell rings and stops ringing.
Drums resist being beaten but are beat anyway.
The sticks rape the flesh of the drums.
An old rabbi
begins to grasp what is happening.
The order becomes even more orderly,
neat, reasoned, vicious.
Machines or men?
Who can tell?
Rods bound together.
An ill wind blows the world clean of irony.
An ambiguous baker bakes an ambiguous bread.
The bread is uneaten.
The baker is jailed.
Lunch swivels on a hook.
Brides hooked on love
are dragged into beds.
Fascist ants,
citizens of a strictured world,
do not notice severe contraction.
1978