These
shabby legs won’t bend
and
ache the darned
hobble
once and hobble twice
through
life’s misery.
Daylong
toil, ruffian toil!
everyone
beating: masters, slaves;
everyone:
slaves, master
and
left me starving.
The
children, the good children,
competed
in childhood,
with
stones at the underbelly
fistfuls
of flies at the bollocks!
Up
the village, down the village
uphill,
downhill
with
heat and rain
till
lassitude overflowed the soul.
Twenty
years old burro
I’ve
carried a whole pit
and
built, on the entryway,
the
village’s church.
And
paired with the ox
-different
stature and different gait-
I
ploughed in ravines
the
master’s acres.
And
during war all in all
I
carried machine guns
for
populaces to get killed
for
the master’s food.
And
for this rascal
I
carried the bride
and
her dowry a mountain,
her
honour sky-reaching!
But
me, to a peg
they
tied me during May
in
the bare field
to
bray, to lament.
And
the priest with his belly
took
me for his work
and
spoke to me waggling:
―
“Christ rode you!
Work
to replete
the
whole Homeland and the Few.
Don’t
ask how or why,
seek
the virtue!”
―
“I can’t bear it! I’ll fall down!”
―
“Be chagrined! The forefathers be chagrined!”
―
“I’m nauseous!... I’m hungry!...”
―
“Hush! You’ll eat in heaven!”
And
I thought: when one day
old
age gets the upper hand
I’ll
too rest
the
God’s jument!
No
beating! No packing!
They’ll
give me a corner,
some
drink and hay,
pension
for so many years!
And
when a good night
I
kick the bucket
and
breathe my last
(a
puff! that’s life)
may
my soul rush
in
Abram’s(Abraham) warm embrace,
his
white, strawish
beard
to kiss!...
I
grew old and as I was of no use
and
was a rumbling rotter,
they
threw me away
for
the beasts to eat me.
I
grovelled my ass off and found
Saint
Francis in the cave:
―
“Hail true light
and
protector of animals!
Save
old mr Menti
from
Master’s injustice
you
who taught mr wolf
to
become a lamb!
The
brutal master make,
make
him human out of a wolf!...”
But
with this talk
he
shut door and ear on me.
Then
a black snake,
sticks
out its' forked tongue
behind
the brushwood
and
judders it wittily:
―
“Jackasses and plebes
prey
for light to heavens,
but
gods and foul fiends
are
not there rather than here.
If
it’s justice you pant, my old fruit,
with
the justice of war
you’ll
find it. Whoever desires
freedom,
takes a sword.
Don’t
strike your brother –
but
your master the earless!
And
to (the products of) your own sweat
you
be the master.
Giddy
up victim, giddy up sucker
giddy
up eternal symbol!
If
you wake up all at once
the
world will flip over,
Behold!
The others have set about
and
the creation has turned red
and
another sun has risen
over
another sea, another land
