1
Tonight I am down among the ballast.
I am one of the silent weights
that prevent the ship from overturning!
Obscure faces in the darkness like stones.
They can only hiss: “Don’t touch me.”
2
Other voices throng, the listener
glides like a lean shadow over the radio’s
luminous band of stations.
The language marches in step with the executioners.
Therefore we must get a new language.
3
The wolf is here, friend for every hour
touching the windows with his tongue.
The valley is full of crawling axe handles.
The night-flier’s din pours over the sky
sluggishly, like a wheelchair with iron rims.
4
They are digging up the town. But it is silent now.
Under the elms in the churchyard:
an empty excavator. The scoop against the earth—
the gesture of a man who has fallen asleep at the table
with his fist in front of him. —Bell-ringing.