I
I think it will be a day to mourn,
When we’ll have to smoothen and free from contradiction’s
Friction this cartographed ice rink.
It will be a day to mourn, I think,
When we’ll have to flatten to one tone
The manifold wavelets of the sea.
It will, I think, a day to mourn be,
When only charred zip-ties remain to link
Then’s us to today’s wanderers forlorn.
II
CLAUDE ULLMANN, DIT “LE MASQUE”
EUT LE TEMPS D’AVALER SA PILULE
DE CYANURE, LE 8 NOVEMBRE 1943 . . .
III
Vernichtung.
Wayward scarves, mumbling but unmistakably
Palestinian,
Torn away and bundled; paraphernalia of
apparat eroding.
We, as students of a certain economic and
social standing–
Sentence you to the stake and to
insomnia.
There is a growing rumbling within
earshot,
And if you aren’t careful it’ll sting
and you won’t know how.
IV
GUILLAUME VERMERSCH,
DIT “LE BISON” FUT DÉCAPITÉ
À LA HACHE DANS UNE PRISON
ALLEMANDE LE 16 DÉCEMBRE
1943 . . .
V
There is no guarantee that it will happen.
No guarantee that the waters will obey the
leader of the Petroleum Division, no
guarantee that impersonally consigned
murder will stop dusting the aged corners
of a blood-lusty shape, no guarantee
that any separation within one life
is possible, no guarantee that the
world as we know it will one day be as
we don’t.
VI
LUC JARDIE MOURUT
SOUS LA TORTURE
LE 22 JANVIER 1944,
APRÈS AVOIR LIVRÉ
UN NOM: LE SIEN . . .
VII
Somewhere one must make the choice
and make not like reality,
unreliably relayed by deft tellers daft
about congruence, but like figures from a play.
Make like Melville’s shadows, know that
even breaths are inscribed in the tapestry
of life’s endless reweighting
and breathe, without guarantees,
against the deafening exhales
of a pessimism rooted in collective fear.
VIII
ET LE 13 FÉVRIER 1944,
PHILIPPE GERBIER DÉCIDA,
CETTE FOIS·LÀ, DE NE PAS
COURIR . . .
IX
in the summer, you can’t see your breath leave your mouth
neither is the December cold cold enough in some places
you don’t refuse to breathe do you
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