The Sound of Water

Image borrowed from Bing

The Sound of Water

With every new invention*
what was long hidden launches into space.
Spectacular, the groundlings cry,
the baby plutocrats who live this side of Russia.
There are so many here,
so little time to push your way
between them, trembling,*
where the owners of your lives,
intrepid, brutal, face off for a final round.
The sound of water* was the title
but the words were not the same.*
In tune with which a long procession follows,
baring their teeth like rows of diamonds,
glittery like glass or little poniards.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,
the banner reads,
back to the dawn of childhood dreams.
Up stands the captain, head in hands,
the thought renewed in dullness,
triggering a voiceless rage.*
Command, condemn, control.
The age* of oligarchs begins anew.
From every corner of the heimat those who buy their
circumstances sally forth.
All is forgiven, all is not forgiven.
The word is divagations, is it not?

Jerome Rothenberg

Posted over on his site Poems and Poetics