Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

–

‘And the wells?’ said Shaphat. ‘The grazing lands to the north?’ –

‘You have, I hear, been living off salt,’ said the officer.

‘It would not be hospitable to send you back to it.

Salt is good, but only in moderation.’

And so the Israelites moved into the kingdom of Moab.

But Moses said to Joshua: ‘Towns. Towns.

Very corruptive places.’ Joshua said:

‘We shall, we hope, be building towns ourselves.’

But Moses shook his head: ‘Market-towns perhaps,

Full of sheep-dung. Call them disposable towns.

I am thinking rather of the cities where the citizens

Amass possessions – jewels and golden bedsteads.

Compromise, fatness, wavering in the faith.

Corruption. Even our short time here is dangerous.

The religion of Ba’al is seductive, Joshua.

We must watch our people.’ Caleb said: ‘We know that.

Zimri is watching. He has appointed himself

A kind of moral spy.’ And Moses said:

‘A young man of good family. Reliable.’

(Zimri walking watchfully in the evening,

Passing signs of corruption – laughing girls

Selling themselves for an hour or a night – swine flesh,

Drunken singing. He walked watchfully.)

‘Oh yes,’ Caleb said. ‘Very reliable.’

But Zipporah lingered at death’s gate. In the night,

Moses spoke to his God: ‘Let her go in peace.

I shall have no power over her final agony.

Then, soon, there will be very few of us

Left over from the old days. And Joshua and Caleb –

They alone of the old days shall enter the land.

Not I, because of my sin of doubt. So be it.

But what then is left for me now? Let the day come soon,

For all things are ready – a people in a good heart,

A people that learns to know its God. Let me see then

The river and the land from the high places,

And then be set free.’ He heard wailing

From the tent where Zipporah lay and bowed his head,

Though dry-eyed. What then is left for me now?

Zimri in daylight, walking the streets, observed

A public monument depicting men

Half-beast half-fish, engaged in contorted acts

Of love unknown to the Israelites. He saw

A woman, all brown blubber, laden with jewels,

Being carried on a litter, on her lap

A silver sweet-dish piled with powdery sweetmeats,

Powder and sugar about her mouth. Two flunkeys

Whipped beggars and children out of her path. He saw

A blind man, in the final stage of some pox

Unknown to the Israelites, being led by a boy

In the first stage of some pox unknown to the Israelites.

He saw a vendor crying his works of art:

A frank act of sodomy in silver,

A man eating a cat alive, an image

Of Ba’al both foul and seductive, the rarest modes

Of love on wood or copper. And then he came

To an open-air feast, a table loaded heavy

With strange dishes. Beggars hungrily watched

But were beaten away by men with staves. Odd scraps

Of odd-looking meat were thrown at them: they gnawed

At bones like dogs. And Zimri, horrified, saw

Two Israelites at the feast, wearing the apparel

Of the Army of Israel. Their host, a gross Moabite

With a moon-belly, urged them to eat and swill:

‘Nothing like this in the wilderness, my boys –

Lobsters fresh from the coast – crack one, crunch one,

Sausages – try one, try several. And this dish

Is one of my cook’s great prides: an unborn calf

Cooked in its mother’s milk. Fall to. Eat, eat.’

Zimri waited, collected a patrol,

And drove the drunken offenders, bellies taut,

Back to the camp and judgement. Joshua raged:

‘Why not? I will tell you why not – because it is

Expressly forbidden by the food laws: that’s why not.

Ten days on fatigues: you’ll soon learn why not.’

Zimri in night town, walking amid torches,

Music, dance, passed a man and a woman

Embracing naked and frankly in the shadows.

He shuddered, then grew angry when he observed

An Israelite he knew – Gaddiel, son of Sodi? –

Mounting steps to a temple, or what seemed to be

A temple, its front carved with contorted bodies

In acts of love unknown to the Israelites.

He followed but had already lost him in the shadows

When he entered a chamber leading off the porch of the temple,

Lighted by torches and splitting oil-lamps, gross

With pagan effigies. His heart thumped, he looked about him,

And then a woman emerged from the shadows, a Moabite,

In garments he took for those of a priestess, ugly,

Obscenely so, appallingly, seductively so.

She spoke honey: ‘You sir, are a stranger.’ –

‘An Israelite,’ he answered, his voice not

Well in control, and she said: ‘Ah a follower

Of the new god we are hearing so much about.

The god of vengeance which is called justice.’ He:

‘A God of love, we are taught. Of love. A God.’

But she said, smiling: ‘So – not a new god, then.

You are interested, stranger, in our faith?’

Stiffly he said: ‘My own faith is enough

To keep my organ of faith fully occupied.

Other faiths are an abomination, so we are taught.

Many gods – all of them unclean:

The way of the Moabites, we are taught, much like

The way of the accursed Egyptians.’ She said:

‘The Egyptian gods are gods of death – so we are taught.’

He said: ‘Madam, you have been well instructed.

I must tell you that I am here officially.

Are Israelites frequenting this temple? I thought I saw

One enter now.’ She said: ‘Israelites, Moabites –

The names mean nothing. Servants of Ba’al

Come to the temple to worship. I do not enquire

Beyond the faith, beyond the willingness

To embrace the faith.’ – ‘And what’ he said, ‘is the faith?’

She said to him softly: ‘Look about you.’ He looked

At effigies, paintings, showing modes of love

Not known to Israel, she talking the while,

Holding a torch to light the effigies:

‘The faith is love, but not perhaps love

As a desert people will know it. You desert-folk

Live in wide space and feel a desire to fill it.

You are a nation, so I hear, that is desirous

Of being great among the peoples of the earth.

You breed, you fill your tents with children. With you

The coupling of man and woman is to that end.

You do not talk or dream of the ecstasy of love –

Only the seed’s flow, the setting of the seed to work.

To you, the act of the man and the woman is like the

Sowing of a field. To us, it is not so.’

Zimri gulped at some of the effigies.

‘Whatever it is, this love