The Curious Noise of History
The world is young with very light, paper flakes
made of torn poems and torn flags
Yannis Ritsos
The curious noise of history
blows in from the outside
ruffles the pregnant collar
of Yannis Ritsos’ patchy suit
coat stuffed with poems spilt
from the camp’s granite mouth.
The “I” of the lyric smuggled
out of memory, impregnated
with the poet’s rock-dust;
the tips of his fingers worn down
with human ink. An extension
of the pick’s blunt causality.
Poets, writers, intellectuals
garbed in words for the first time.
These inmates of language,
origamied with rhythms mechanical
as lice. The syllabic irritation
scratched breath by breath under
a woollen ignorance. The fibrous,
organic response to the curious
noise of history. To the Dead
Sea Scrolls extravaganza, hidden
inside standard prison issue
Aegean blue.