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Hands nailed to the rostra
Cicero found it hard
To write letters
(His difficult tongue
Hung from a woman’s necklace)
How many traitors tumbled
Down the Rock
And deserved it
How many silks split
When Victoria bore
The whip
How many, how many
In the Pantheon
A hollow mount
How many gods
Expired under smoke
How many bones
Smoldered from Jupiter’s bolt
How many
Counting steps
From north to south
Who foresaw
The smallest room
Of all
Fed twice daily
On slimy rinds
And fleas
And never given a toothpick
“Dangerous,” they say
But what does a man want
Other than pushing out his own brain
Other than piercing
His brittle skull
First, put out the fire
Then his eyes
Cold, milky
Wet with mold and endless rain
The family name
Was never De Rais
From where came the hoods
And maps of nerves
And teeth
“Do the girls in county
Know my old friend the baron?
He now lives on vagrant’s ground
Defenseless
Still I hear his petitions…”
Did his sight darken
In this crumbling pile
Hive of dust
“Yes, that bastard Klossowski
Complained of the age…”
The fire’s dead
Put out his eyes
Daughters of the Alps
Descend from a white bull
And Europa
Sons of the Alps
Find refuge from horns In horns
At foot we have snow
At hand we have powder
The tunnel at the end of the world
Leads not to the end
It is barely a tunnel
There is no end
There is no world
Without horns
Curved like the iris
Forever flared
Of the dying Gaul
