Breaking Up the Wall
Does the brick make sense
When the wall is smashed?
It does.
As obstacle, as opposing force,
wanting to save what it meant before
in the line of the sentence made with
the other bricks on the page of the wall
Like a typewriter striking the page the hammer
punches holes in the paper-wall
and the letters drop out on the other side
utterly incomprehensible, broken up
even if only one letter falls out
first of the alphabet
absolute A.
The quickest way to break up a wall
knock out all the bricks marked A
no wall or building can survive like that
carry them then to a desert and build
a pyramid there
which from base to summit will shout
a long sharp A
so that the very stars will hear
and the letters will all be knocked from the walls
and multiply to infinity
every one of them differently
Only thus will language be re-made
only thus the world be rearranged
and only thus maybe
a new poem written
As it is
I have only exhausted muscles
dry dust in my mouth
and the fallen bricks—
the heads of those
who knocked their heads against the wall
and still weep with the pain of the hammer
and my own head
against the wall
I broke
-en ME
translated by Peggy Reid and Graham.W. Reid (Macedonian Review, No 1, 1992)