Classic Poem

I saw you in Houston, waiting for the verdict
to decree life or death for you, one foot rooted
in death row, beating out an even song:
" Drive this death from me, scatter
these thousand seeds of death
from my tortured blood, those seeds
that dropped a steel anchor
deep into my heart's heart. "

Where, stranger, did the crab monster strike?
Your face pale as bloodless wheat?
Where has his stinging tail
plunged into your flesh?
Tomorrow drink the cup of bitterness
and slowly watch the horrors of the battle
you must wage with this beast of many tails:
Watch and tire, tire and rest, then fight again, again.

Life here is a dagger: honed and sharp;
Here fellow bodies await the knife — twisted flesh,
half-slit veins, bloodless, dwindling sacks of bones,
chancred, chopped, flayed, hairless ...
(these bald heads the beacons of this battle,
gleaming under the pitiless neon
that glazes their eyes,
grieving eyes whose hopes the beast has wounded,
eyes still brimming with the will to live).

For tomorrow, silent stranger, my countryman,
you will drink the bitter worm and the still more bitter cure
soon you will join the ranked heroes,
the legions of those who fight back.
For, yes, you are one more hero,
Your body made nothing, drowned in frothing quicklime
Now that that eight-armed demon makes your flesh burst
with alien cells that wall you in,
Jailing you in ransom to death ...

You are one more hero who dared enter the wolf's lair,
selling him slices of your corpse: arm, leg, breast, neck,
letting him rape you head to spine to feet,
Giving him your body to mar
(the way he will my sister
who stands here beside me like a fallen queen).
But you will not yield!

You are one more hero who mocked the hyena's slashing laugh
He who tears you to shreds indelibly
But you will fight, fight him in an equal fight.
Life is the terrible sword shall contest
death and all his minions.

This is the war that only lovers,
consumed by love of life, will wage.
This is the war that flies
a single banner: " Live or die! "
a war where all: captive, victim, warrior — are one,
The enemy the crab tyrant of a thousand claws
a million poisoned cells.

This hollow crab, stranger friend,
where did he sting you?
I see you before me possessing that calm
those lambs display who climb
Mount Arafat for their sacrifice.
For you are the best of heroes,
of those who decline the victim's part,
You who crossed oceans
to slay the crab within
and then return.

And then return?
I hope