Romans Angry About the Inner World

Romans Angry about the Inner World


What shall the world do with its children?
There are lives the executives
Know nothing of:
A leaping of the body,
The body rolling—I have felt it—
And we float
Joyfully toward the dark places.
But the executioners
Move toward Drusia. They tie her legs
On the iron horse. “Here is a woman
Who has seen our Mother
In the other world.” Next they warm
The hooks. The two Romans had put
their trust in the outer world.
Irons glowed like teeth. They wanted her
To assure them. She refused. Finally
They took burning
Pine sticks, and pushed them
Into her sides. Her breath rose
And she died. The executioners
Rolled her off onto the ground.
A light snow began to fall
from the clear sky
And covered the mangled body.
And the executives, astonished,
withdrew.
The inner world is a thorn
In the ear of a tiny beast!
The fingers of the executive
are too thick to pull it out.
It is a jagged stone
Flying toward us out of the darkness.


Robert Bly

Posted over on Poetry Foundation

Robert Bly, “Romans Angry about the Inner World” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1967 and renewed 1995 by Robert Bly.