Collected Poems

by Anthony Burgess

  World? Egypt looks to the. End. The closure. The

  Seal.’ And she: ‘You do not see things as an

  Egyptian does, as a true Egyptian does. They want

  Certainty. Death is all too certain – ’

  ‘If it is so. Certain why is it not. More simple?

  It is expressed though. So many gods. Hawk-faced.

  Dog-headed. Crocodile-toothed. It is a. Darkness.

  Full of monsters.’ And she: ‘When I was a girl,

  I remember, there were men who taught a simple faith.

  A faith of the sun, which it seemed right to worship,

  The lifegiver. The men were heard for a time,

  Then soon not even heard of.’ And he, half to himself,

  Lulled by his own hands’ ministry: ‘The wise men.

  Have taught me to see. Beauty in the many. Beautiful.

  Death in the many. Forms of death. Could there not be a

  Light that is not. The sun. But which the sun. Uses?’

  She then, urgent: ‘Give me light, Moses. Light the torches.’

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘the sun is not yet down.’

  ‘Light them just the same. I fear the dark.

  I would go to the sun and be consumed in him.

  But soon there will be no sun.’ So he lighted them,

  And she said: ‘You came from the water. I must return to it.

  Embark on a boat whose pennant is the sun that shines in the dark.

  Whose name is the name of the god of the harvest of souls.

  Whose oars are the arms of a god whose face I must not see.

  And the keel of the boat is truth. Or justice.

  I am ferried to the western bank of the river,

  For there the sun has his setting. And there I

  Find a secret way into the earth.

  I am going to the river. And you

  Were brought out of the river. The same river?’

  So Moses, with troubled affection, stroked her brow,

  But the hands had no magic… A grain-city,

  In wood and baked clay and wire, a toy for Mernefta,

  Crown prince of Egypt, cousin to Moses, only a child

  But imperious enough, filled the chamber and he strode over it,

  Seeing the whole city from his sky like a god, while a

  Chamberlain pointed out this and this, not quite a toy then

  But a projected glory of the empire, a torment for the slaves.

  Moses came and said: ‘You summoned me, my lord.’

  And the boy: ‘It is highness you must call me, cousin.

  Your highness. I have searched for you all day

  And everywhere. That is not right.’ (‘Not right.

  Your highness.’) ‘You promised to take me to hunt

  Crocodiles.’ Deferential, a little amused, sad:

  ‘Ah, yes, your highness. But then. I reconsidered.

  Your highness. What would have happened to me.

  If the crocodiles had. Snapped and eaten you?

  What would have happened. To the throne of. Egypt?’

  A child’s scowl: ‘You, I suppose, would have taken it.

  I am angry with you, cousin.’ A little bemused, sad:

  ‘Do not be angry. You highness. Not now. I am come.

  To tell you sad news.’ Then the chamberlain, a man’s scowl:

  ‘His highness is not to be given sad news. That is laid down.’

  Moses, ignoring him: ‘My mother is dead. Your

  Father’s sister. The Princess Bithiah.

  Is dead.’ A child’s cruelty: ‘Dead? Like the

  Three thousand men who built the treasure-city,

  And the ones who will die building this?’ hitting it.

  ‘Yes. Highness. There is only. One way of being

  Dead.’ But the child was more than a child: ‘No.

  Those dead will be forgotten. Not one name

  Of one of them will be remembered. But

  My name will be written there. They will take hammers

  And hammer my name into stone. Mernefta,

  Fifth king of his dynasty, first of them all for glory.

  And the thousands of dead, five or six thousand,

  Forgotten. A fine thing.’ The chamberlain, impatient:

  ‘Highness, you have forgotten the purpose

  For which your cousin was sent here.’ And the boy: ‘Ah, yes.

  You, cousin, are to go and see the workers.

  To see that they are building right. I asked my father

  That you be sent. It is a punishment, you see.

  You should have taken me hunting.’ A little amused, sad,

  Bowing: ‘As your highness says. A punishment.’

  But there was a task to perform first. Among the effigies,

  In the reek of the holy fires, he stood, watching,

  While, with wands of obsidian, the priests and priestesses

  Opened her dead eyes and mouth, intoning:

  Your lips I open in the god’s name,

  That you may speak and eat.

  Your eyes I open in the god’s name,

  That light and sight may bless them.

  But not the gross tastes and speech of the earth.

  But not the insubstantial light of the sun

  That warms the earth. When you awaken

  And depart from the tomb, at the endless

  End of the sacred river underground,

  You will raise your eyes to light eternal,

  Open your mouth in speech

  That is soundless since it is the soul of speech.

  Let all my offences be forgotten dust.

  Let tribulation be as motes in the sun

  When the sun is down.

  Greetings to you, greatest god of the underworld.

  At length my eyes are brought to the

  Witness of your beauty, whose eternal contemplation

  Is my sole care. I know your name at last,

  As I know the names of the two and forty gods

  Who preside in the halls of the eternal.

  I am become one to whom sin is not even a name.

  I am become one who had no eyes for the false path.

  And line by coil the winding-sheet rose to the

  Neck, the mouth, the nostrils. Then eyes alone

  Where uncovered. So Moses took the linen, trembling,

  And covered them, saying: ‘You who became my mother

  Out of your goodness

  Who leave me motherless

  And yet with a mother

  Still to be sought,

  Farewell.’ And the ceremony was ended. It was time to

  Engage the sun, the living and dying, not the dead: duty.

  Officers of the court invested him in the

  Travelling robes of a prince. A princely horse,

  With jewelled caparison, pawed dust out of the earth.

  He mounted, was saluted, rode off with officers,

  Attendants, a body-servant, towards Pithom, asking:

  ‘Pithom. And what is the life of Pithom?’ –

  ‘Slaves, your highness. But sometimes unruly. Enslaved,

  But a stubborn people. A very alien people.’

  Dust and sun and travel. Birds screaming.

  But, in a hovel in Pithom, a woman screaming.

  The workers passed to work, shrugging, an Egyptian

  Overseer claiming his rights from a woman of Israel,

  Wife of a slave, what could they do? Still – cuckold.

  Always a hard word. But what could the cuckold do?

  The cuckold, Dathan, inclining to the side of the rulers,

  Hence a foreman of workers, opened his own door

  To see himself being cuckolded. Inclining to the side

  Of the rulers, but showing truculence. The overseer

  Looking up, grinning, from the bed, the frightened wife,

  To say: ‘You should not be here, should you, Dathan?’ –
<
br />   ‘It seems not,’ said Dathan, ‘but I have certain rights.’ –

  ‘No rights, Dathan.’ – ‘Not even the right

  To report to my superior official? Officially?’ –

  Grinning, ‘Not even that right. You will report

  When you are officially ordered to report. In the meantime,

  You have duties to carry out.’ And Dathan, truculent:

  ‘Duties to my manhood.’ The Egyptian laughed at that,

  And rose from Dathan’s bed, though lazily, saying:

  ‘Only free men can talk of manhood. What does Dathan

  The unfree have to say?’ And the unfree: ‘Straw.

  The straw has arrived.’ The overseer: ‘Oh,

  Use some of your own. Man of straw.’ The hands of Dathan,

  As of their own, were on to the ravisher,

  Slid, sweating, on the tunic near the neck. Teeth gritted.

  Teeth grinned: ‘An example, little Dathan.

  An example is required. Would you not say so? An example.’

  On the worksite, where the Israelites slapped mud into brick-forms,

  All eyes looked up in a sort of relief (relief at the prospect of

  Change in any shape, even change for the worse)

  At arriving hooves. Gold, snorting horses, Egyptians.

  Whips cracked, work you dogs and so on, they were used to whips.

  Miriam the woman was bringing water in a jar. She too looked up

  And her brother Aaron, a man now, or slave, drinking, too

  Looked up at an unknown voice. An Egyptian prince

  But not quite an Egyptian, the voice hopping like a bird

  Not clanking like endless metal: ‘Is not this man

  Too ill to work?’ And an officer, idly swishing a fly-fan;

  ‘He is not too ill to work he is still working.’

  And the prince saw, frowning, the lashed back of another,

  Asking: ‘What is this?’ And the worker replied:

  ‘It is what might be termed an inducement to increased effort.’ –

  ‘You speak like a scholar. Are you a scholar?’ –

  ‘I was a scholar of sorts. When scholarship was allowed.’

  Aaron and Miriam looked at each other. Was it not perhaps

  Just possible that – The prince said: ‘Their quarters.

  I will see their. No. Alone. I will go alone.’ So it was

  That, alone on the Pithom street between the hovels,

  The women looking up curious, the children following,

  Moses heard pain and the crunch of a rod. He opened a door

  On to a naked man held by two men, grinning, Israelites

  All three, and a sweating overseer, panting, punishing,

  The man howling, a woman sobbing on a bed. The overseer,

  Seeing an Egyptian aristocrat come in, smirked

  With an air of virtue and smote hard: Dathan howled.

  Moses cried: ‘Stop. What is this?’ Paused, panting, saying:

  ‘Punishment. My lord. For inefficiency. For insolence.

  For insubordination.’ And raised the rod. Dathan: ‘For

  Not. Wanting. To be a.’ The rod fell, he howled. Moses:

  ‘You. Assistants. Are Israelites?’ And the overseer panted:

  ‘They are Israelites, my lord. This is their foreman.

  They naturally have no love for their foreman. Now.

  If you will permit me.’ And he raised, and the hand of Moses,

  To the surprise of Moses, rose and grasped the rod,

  And the mouth of Moses, to the surprise of Moses, said:

  ‘I gave an order. I said stop. I call that also

  Insolence. Insubordination.’ And Moses, to the surprise

  Not only of Moses, leapt from a rock into a

  Gorgeous sea of anger, beating beating, following the

  Crawling stupefied beaten about the floor, beating.

  The Israelites watched with pleasure different from

  Their former pleasure, Dathan bled in pleasure but

  Shock crowned the pleasure: this surely was what was the word

  This was insanity. Without the door women listened,

  Children, old men, young men coming off shift,

  Screams and beating but soon no more of either,

  Only breath sharply intaken and a desperate sobbing

  For breath from one. And, within, that one

  Dropped the rod, looking narrowly, saw then about him

  Eyes not narrow at all, the women’s eyes especially

  Wide in incredulity, then found breath to, to his surprise,

  Excuse the beast that had possessed and was now departing:

  ‘It was. Too much. But a. Man does not.

  Die of a beating. His heart stopped. His heart

  Suddenly stopped.’ And Dathan, to the two

  Who had held him: ‘My time will come for you. Friends.

  Now back to work. This is none of your concern.’

  They shuffled. ‘I have things to remember, have I not?

  Bloody things. Quick to leave, leaving the door wide,

  Shocked faces to look in, elation, fear, feelings

  Not easily definable.’ Dathan: ‘You killed him, you.

  You will go away and say that I did it.

  They will all say that I did it.’ But Moses, calm now:

  ‘No one killed him. His heart suddenly stopped.

  But the responsibility. Is mine.’ He then, addressing the clamour:

  ‘You see a dead Egyptian in your midst.

  But you have no cause. For fear. The

  Blame will not. Be visited on you. He was

  Killed by his own. Brutality. His heart burst.

  Have no fear.’ An old man, near-blind, said: ‘I’d say that

  It was a strange thing to hear an Egyptian lord

  Speak against brutality. Who are you, young man, who

  Speak of Egyptian brutality?’ And at last in Pithom

  It was heard aloud at last: ‘My name is Moses.’

  And he thrust through them, man of authority, yet drawn

  In a way he could not yet explain to himself

  To these vigorous slaves. Moses. The crowd handled it,

  Rang it like a coin, tasted it, the corpse bloody on the floor,

  The killer at large, the police pushing in: ‘Who did it?

  Who saw?’ ‘I saw, I saw, his name is Moses.’ ‘The prince Moses?’

  This is nonsense, an Egyptian slaying an Egyptian

  In the presence of slaves. But, in her father’s house,

  Miriam, ecstatic, spoke: ‘Moses. It has come true.’

  Aaron, far from ecstatic, carper and doubter,

  Said: ‘Nothing has come true. Except that

  What seems to you a beginning is really an end.

  All Pithom talks of him already as if he were

  Already the deliverer. You have kept his name

  Alive of their lips, though in a whisper, these twenty years.

  So now he is an Israelite who has killed an Egyptian.

  There is no promise of anything save further servitude.

  We must go on grovelling to Egyptian gods for, believe me,

  These gods will prevail and will always prevail.’ Amram, old now,

  Said: ‘The voice is the voice of a prophet, my son,

  But the words are a slave’s words.’ Wild-eyed, Aaron:

  ‘I see things as they are. I am not, like my sister here,

  Wild-eyed.’ And Jochebed the old woman: ‘When he

  When he walks into this house – ’ Aaron: ‘If, if.

  He must leave, or else be a sacrifice to Egypt.

  He will have no time for walking into houses.’

  But she: ‘When he talks into the house of his parents,

  I shall be expected to have words, but what words

  I do not know. I loved a child I lost.

  And now I must expect the pain
of learning to

  Love a child who is found. And must be lost again.’

  But Moses, walking alone, touching and smelling this

  Alien race, finding it not alien, exerting authority

  That did not seem to him that of an alien, came to a place

  Where one Israelite fought another, both bloody from fists,

  With a divided crowd making cockfight noises,

  And cried ‘Stop this’ so that they stopped an instant,

  But only that one of the fighters could pant out: ‘Ah,

  The Lord Moses. Are you come then to be our judge?

  To strike us down as you struck the Egyptian down?’

  And Moses said nothing but felt the tremor of the

  Fear of the hunted, wondering why. ‘Moses,’ the jeer went,

  ‘Our judge and our executioner?’ A boy in the crowd

  Came to Moses and tugged at the princely robe

  And spoke and Moses bent to hear, not understanding,

  Not at all well understanding, not at first.

  But Dathan, blood washed off, bruised, limping,

  But in his best robe, understood well enough,

  Going from man to man in authority,

  Telling his story: ‘I have served well, sir, my lord,

  And it is my ambition to serve better.

  I would not utter the dirty word payment, of course – ’

  You will be paid whatever your information

  Is worth. Do not waste time.

  ‘I had thought of, perhaps, some small promotion.’

  Do not waste time. ‘Waste time, no. I have witnesses

  Outside to testify to the murder of our overseer,

  A good just man. A senseless murder, if I may say so.’

  Do not. ‘The Lord Moses was the slayer.’

  He had authority to exert discipline. Go on.

  ‘The Lord Moses, with respect, sir, had no such authority.

  He is an Israelite. The Princess Bithiah

  (May her soul have rest) took him out of the Nile.

  It is a long story which I will be happy to tell.

  He is the son of Jochebed and Amram of the tribe of Levi.

  He was saved by his sister in the old time of the

  Necessary execution of the children.’ And then,

  Not liking the silence, ‘I tell no lie. Sir, my lord,

  Gentlemen, I tell no lie.’ But the silence was the

  Silence of rumination of the delectable bread of

  Coming intrigue. There were some who hated Moses.

  Something unegyptian about him. Bastard spewed by the river.

  Stories, stories. ‘I tell no lie.’ Give him some

  Bauble or other. Tell him to wait outside.

  And the boy from the crowd led Moses to Miriam,