Collected Poems Read Online Free Page A

house
    tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
    even fall asleep—her face
    turned to the wall!
    … Thus the Commandant at Belsen
    Camp going home for
    the day with fumes of
    human roast clinging
    rebelliously to his hairy
    nostrils will stop
    at the wayside sweetshop
    and pick up a chocolate
    for his tender offspring
    waiting at home for Daddy's
    return….
    Praise bounteous
    providence if you will
    that grants even an ogre
    its glowworm
    tenderness encapsulated
    in icy caverns of a cruel
    heart or else despair
    for in the very germ
    of that kindred love is
    lodged the perpetuity
    of evil.
Public Execution in Pictures
    The caption did not overlook
    the smart attire of the squad. Certainly
    there was impressive swagger in that
    ready, high-elbowed stance; belted
    and sashed in threaded dragon teeth
    they waited in self-imposed restraint—
    fine ornament on power unassailable—
    for their cue
    at the crucial time
    this pretty close-up lady in fine lace
    proved unequal to it, her first no doubt,
    and quickly turned away But not
    this other—her face, rigid
    in pain, firmly held between her palms;
    though not perfect yet, it seems
    clear she has put the worst
    behind her today
    in my home
    far from the crowded live-show
    on the hot, bleached sands of Victoria
    Beach my little kids will crowd
    round our Sunday paper and debate
    hotly why the heads of dead
    robbers always slump forward
    or sideways.

Gods, Men, and Others
Penalty of Godhead
    The old man's bed
    of straw caught a flame blown
    from overnight logs by harmattan's
    incendiary breath. Defying his age and
    sickness he rose and steered himself
    smoke-blind to safety.
    A nimble rat appeared at the
    door of his hole looked quickly to left and
    right and scurried across the floor
    to nearby farmlands.
    Even roaches that grim
    tenantry that nothing discourages
    fled their crevices that day on wings they
    only use in deadly haste.
    ousehold gods alone
    frozen in ritual black with blood
    of endless tribute festooned in feathers
    perished in the blazing pyre
    of that hut.
Those Gods Are Children
(for Gabriel Okara)
    No man who loves himself
    will dare to drink
    before his fathers' presences enshrined
    by the threshold have drunk
    their fill. A fool alone will
    contest the precedence of ancestors
    and gods; the wise wisely
    sing them grandiloquent lullabies
    knowing they are children
    those omnipotent deities.
    Take that avid-eyed old man
    full horn in veined hand
    unsteadied by age who calls
    forward his fathers tilting the horn
    with amazing skill for a hand
    so tremulous till grudging trickles
    break through white froth
    at the brim and course down
    the curved side to fine point
    of sacrifice ant-hole-size in earth:
    come together all-powerful spirits
    and drink; no need to scramble
    there's enough for all!
    Or when the offering of yams
    is due who sends the lively
    errand son to scour the barn
    and bring a sacrifice fit
    for the mighty dead! Naive
    eager to excel the child
    returns in sweat lumbering
    the heavy pride of his father's harvest:
    ignorant child, all ears and no eyes!
    is that the biggest in my barn?
    I said the biggest!
    Only then does the nimble child
    perceive a surreptitious fist quickly shown
    and withdrawn again—and break through
    wisdom's lashing cordon to welcoming smiles
    of initiation. He makes the journey
    of the neophyte to bring home a ritual
    offering as big as an egg.
II
    Long ago a man of fury drawn
    by doom's insistent call slew
    his brother. The land and every deity
    screamed revenge: a head for a head
    and raised their spear
    to smite the town should it
    withhold the due. The man
    was ready. The elders' council
    looked at him and turned
    from him to all the orphans doubly
    doomed and shook their heads:
    the gods are right and just! This man
    shall hang but first may he
    retrieve the sagging house
    of his fathers
    and the fine points
    of the gods' spears
    returned to earth
    and he lived for years that man
    of death he raised his orphans
    he