Lot

I have seen many and sin-breeding deeds
profaning the light and the wind,
and misunderstood customs, and fire games in the city.
Naked people have I seen in rusty-copper green lakes
kissing silvery swans.
I have seen, fear-stricken, in front of the gate,
Girls dancing their whiteness off
for long nailed kings-
and I have seen priests in linen clothes intoxicating
the beggars with the wine the dead have been washed with.

I have seen women setting their seed on fire
their mission cast between two eternities like an insult,
their breasts-ripe fruit with no milk, no milk within,
their breath killing bees and herbs.

I have seen transparent guests on the shore of blood:
children who will be delivered but are not desired
(if you stop your ears up
you can hear through spheres their bitter thirst,
their dumb murmur at the world's windows,
and their song of relief
when they find entrance
in trees, dogs, and in birds).
I have heard many and sin-breeding words
profaning the light and the wind.

Alas, sons of the cities, you think that
no one has seen the sun ever,
and that clear light is nothing but a tale.
Your questions stir the depths,
and you hurt with stones the voiceless eyes of the wells,
but you cannot guess from their silence
the unexpected ending.

Alas, sons of the cities, in any deed
you deny the Earth its heavenly descent.
You haven't feasted the angels come with the Eucharist,
you haven't cleaned their dusty wings,
but scolded them instead-cruelly plucking their feathers
and bedizened in them, you dance and dance
around the golden streets of the accursed calves.

It will not be seven days, it will not be seven days.
Woe is me that I have to wait.
My flocks of sheep and my live coals
will sink into the sea.
I can hear my dogs barking from the bottom of the sea.
Alas, my God, for I have to hold my words
when I strip naked.
The woman shall turn into a salt pillar
when looking back.