A friend has turned on me today
And all my world is anger,
Fumaroles of discontent.
Sitting by this lake of ice
I wish to be a cat among the wrens
That chirp and sit hop-footed on the snow
Blood tastes good, the warmth of killing
Cools anger back to quietude.
A friend has turned away today
And all is foreign.
Men in numbered uniforms pass by
Their bootheels drum across the ice
Striding fast, a regimental rhythm.
Everywhere I turn, I am threatened:
Soldiers without guns follow me,
Old peasant women in head-cloths push by;
A pretty girl glares at me, and gestures obscenely:
The old men want me to move on.
This place is far from my homeland.
Blue and green, ever-promising;
This land shoulders me aside
In brown and grey shadows,
The dreams of the dying.