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  I had to speak

  to deny silence,

  and proclaimed I believe

  —my frosty speech white

  in the atmosphere.

  My my,

  I was happy

  to see peaceful Escher

  in that territory

  recording the view.

  As a whole

  Escher's world

  was mine—

  old Escher

  with his failed heart

  like a toothless bulldog

  following the lines

  drawn by the world,

  an aggregation of white

  dominated by black.

  Young friend

  he said,

  formal objectivity

  might be

  a personal matter—

  and finally the view,

  whole and fair,

  appeared,

  a demilitarized zone

  extending on both sides

  in which further illusions were salvaged.

  I took the chair

  under the umbrella

  and saw a train journey

  through the countryside

  on the approach

  to a further world.

  Alive while burning,

  Sir I called,

  I would take soundings Sir…

  In the chaos,

  an ample ivory villa

  was open to faith.

  I have seen the ruins

  —the white black,

  the black white—

  but a man cannot live there.

  8

  I was led to a globe,

  beholden

  to its vast revolution

  —a revolution living eyes

  could hardly credit—

  my life diminishing in scale,

  myself the moving woods

  they called the real,

  guided by a spirit

  to low countries in disarray.

  The patchwork of views

  emerged in negative—

  machinery in the fields,

  ground work,

  the promise of form

  in the background.

  There was a universal man,

  a scholar of history.

  To exercise his heart,

  he would complain about love

  in front of the famous Chagall window—

  autumn,

  that revision of the year,

  covering the ground;

  one swallow

  moving south;

  form working the levers—

  and I became a disciple of despair,

  for I had a long good look at that world.

  Help I said.

  In the first circle,

  the centre of never,

  the Minister had constructed a residence

  which included a private zoo

  where he kept a collection

  of exotic political leaders

  set in the midst of vineyards,

  the surrounding waters deep,

  his great concern

  the erosion under the world.

  Greeting me there

  with dinner in mind,

  he launched his primitive harpoon

  at men in the dark.

  One gargled and spat,

  then he swallowed the skin

  red and raw,

  which he insisted

  was the best way

  to eat a respected

  former Congressman.

  Well,

  very well…

  It was an old

  and somewhat shabby-looking Falcon

  professing disbelief—

  Are you thing

  or king?

  I was impressed by the speech

  (hard indeed to respond),

  and facing him I said Help.

  He was co-operative,

  and over that Sahara within

  he invited me to cross

  beyond the fragile coast

  towards the wisest men.

  Friends,

  somewhat surprised

  by grace I was flown

  to universal applause

  —from the West

  to the East summoned—

  asking the Minister,

  my speech in disarray,

  Is that legion I see

  hitherto doomed?

  climbing higher

  as new countries approached,

  taken up

  in the still atmosphere

  and weighed down

  by an increasing mood of If only…

  9

  This is the universal journey

  the gravest proclaimed

  in a universal language

  on a universal stage,

  but I found the sound

  of hunger in the background

  rather distressing.

  Picture the scene.

  Aged women accused their world

  in unison,

  the refrain quiet.

  I approached with my list of names.

  Before me

  a figure said No,

  waving a white handkerchief

  and dancing.

  (That lady, dancing,

  seemed to me a delicate shape

  held under breaking ice).

  The aged Minister,

  courteous but intractable,

  invited me to make a speech

  in that envisaged theatre.

  My somewhat nebulous host,

  his head a needless conference of wounds,

  showed little interest

  in my list of fellow religionaries

  as I called Release them,

  at pains to say Please,

  for I worried about fate,

  if I could bear it,

  and a man with a halo,

  black toga billowing,

  invited me to listen

  to the heart

  I wish I had in life—

  Death,

  death…

  I had the highest regard for him.

  (I spoke a little Italian,

  and was reading

  his Tragedy of Aldo Moro—

  in Italian it was

  most moving).

  With his staff he went

  into his white house.

  We were ushered in

  and said world in different ways.

  I was impressed by his interest

  in my work—

  he tried to encourage me,

  comparing his with my own,

  and made a moving speech

  on one man's faltering steps

  towards the hard barren ground of human suffering…

  10

  On the Indian sub-continent,

  a prince was isolated

  from all knowledge

  that might upset him.

  In the palace he began

  to lament his captivity—

  “Could this self,

  born in a stream of sad time,

  only be makeshift?

  I consider my position

  over and over.

  In ships, the sea is law.

  In famine, the field.”

  Therefore he took the occasion

  to visit the country.

  “My my” he said,

  “I understand nothing.”

  The map of Asia was in the making

  during this period.

  Serious political disturbances

  were causing people to flee

  warfare,

  drought,

  and famine.

  Some thrust aside

  their tragedies to cope.

  “The self in theory is a problem.

  The word does not even cover the remains.”

  11

  My my,

  I had no inkling

  of the crowds within,

  and considered every avenue


  which might lead

  to enlightenment.

  On the first step I called

  with tears in my eyes

  —(that is poetic license,

  it is not easy for me to cry)—

  No

  no…

  A Byzantine Ambassador appeared.

  That plucked out emigre of quiet—

  I wondered what lay behind his words.

  Perhaps you would permit me

  revealingly he said

  a little scenario?

  This all seemed to me

  to have a distinct

  Alice in Wonderland quality.

  Nevertheless the Ambassador

  outlined the plan

  of a public performance.

  White was his wing

  working in the dark

  as I listened with increasing doubt

  to this elaborate script.

  It was extremely complicated

  —full of traps I could not see—

  but I agreed to play my part.

  My role was to speak

  to Mohammed the Revolutionary.

  Under the world

  that able guide awaited,

  intent on the secret of everything.

  True form

  he hinted,

  setting up a little house of cards,

  never promises to remain.

  I suggested that we be off

  and thus left,

  a post-mortem figure

  in byzantine constraints

  discussing the real

  with everyone I met

  at the funeral of fact.

  Mohammed complained

  of injustice,

  turning from the world,

  and called for vengeance

  against fate.

  Consequently,

  I consulted his book

  which I was told

  in Teheran

  had performed well.

  It had neither inside

  nor outside,

  like holy

  War

  love

  —its fabric absence.

  Friends,

  possessed of a clear mind,

  if not happy,

  he spoke on the erosion of wisdom.

  I liked him,

  his rage at spiritual irony,

  his mastery of perhaps,

  his head removed in the field

  by the American people—

  is that history?

  12

  In the middle of that failed regime

  I made a fire.

  A messianic peacock appeared.

  I must have looked surprised,

  for, whirling, he said

  Slogans slogans…

  So I in silence

  regarded the fire.

  It was a loophole in time,

  a detailed plan

  of the the.

  The Minister contented himself

  with listening to the fire—

  that indefatigable flag,

  that red question we faced.

  Distracted in the house,

  the growing frostiness

  seemed to make the distance watchful.

  The eye does not lie.

  Some form continues

  and will continue.

  Thus the flames,

  countless and imponderable,

  sink anew—

  solved,

  whole,

  Holy.

  13

  Time crackled softly

  in the hearth.

  The world the world he said

  and nodded gravely.

  I asked whether

  there was any message

  he wanted me to convey.

  Leaning back in his chair,

  stony and objective,

  the Minister gripped a letter

  concerning friendship,

  good neighbourliness,

  and co-operation

  between the Democratic Republic

  of Union

  and the International Committee

  of the Non-Aligned Movement

  for Foreign Community,

  which united

  this world

  with the other—

  but friends,

  I rejected the text.

  Sir, I formally object

  on matters of substance

  I said

  (for we had become

  mere puppets in a scene

  from Chapter 2

  of Tolstoi's War and Peace),

  slowly and with difficulty,

  since I do not speak Russian

  and could do little but say

  do svidanya,

  walking towards a succession

  of old men from Moscow—

  the old guard,

  the outspoken

  ambassadors there,

  brilliant delegates

  who,

  in a friendly spirit,

  dwelt at some length

  on the making of the key

  that opens the quiet,

  turning in the mechanics of fact…

  14

  I was troubled

  by the quiet

  river of illusion.

  Only self could move

  that heavy river,

  which turned on its way.

  We remained

  in place of course,

  and suffered changes,

  and finally arrived.

  I had to build

  the Minister a fire,

  and even though

  he did not feel that fire,

  it was my Jerusalem.

  We halted for the night

  in a gloomy mood

  down the road

  from the Palace of Un.

  Our welcome took place

  in an austere room

  decorated only with a few pictures.

  Un said

  (without actually saying so)

  that one represented

  The Liberation of Palestine.

  It was a little prospect,

  morning somewhere,

  and hotel beds

  in the garden.

  When I jokingly asked him

  how he liked beds,

  the spirit assured me

  he had slept a long time.

  Ahead, the floor

  was under assembly.

  Steps hurried down

  to a small podium where

  connected to various cables

  I was to remain—

  while before the cameras,

  Un, that intriguing character

  (unshaven,

  unruly,

  and formal)

  asked why I denied

  the play of perceptions.

  I repeated my my,

  inspected my fly,

  and made gestures

  towards the ground.

  There, under the future,

  I saw Hamlet