Poem
Ali Alizadeh
The Incinerator
The Incinerator
The Incinerator
I.You, domain of debris and ash;
whose fire constructed your black towers?
In whose excited furnace fire
and fiery science dared to collude?
Which architect designed your walls
of bricks and charred human sinews?
Whose pestle crushed the bones and lives
to fashion mortar for cobblestones?
Which creator made the people the fuel
to burn as torches on coal-black nights?
Which authority sanctioned the heat
that melted nature to mould your towns?
Your proud, infernal landmarks are raised
by whom? By whose dire commandments?
II.
After Jacques Derrida
You say this is the end
of history; I sense
fresh fumes rising
from the wreckage. You say
this is not at all
a wreckage, this wonderful
destination. You note
the revolutions and the fires
naming us the victors
of the “timeless” conflict. I feel
nothing is timeless;
humanity has always been
a victim and an effect
of time’s cruelties. You point
at the palaces
erected upon the ruins, the Light
on the Hill; “at the end
of the tunnel”. I’m suffocating
and smouldering in the furnaces
of your Kingdom. I see
there’s never been
such horror, not even at the first
apocalypse when your likes saw
the Four Riders. Or was it all
a macabre fantasy? You say
you’re not a fantasist but
an Enlightened observer. You cite
philosophers and scientists
and declare that you’re not
a fanatic. I am an observer too
and have seen carrions extracted
from bombed ruins and charred
martyrs in urns paraded
down the streets. I’ve smelt
the cooked flesh of
the children devoured by the fires
of your Cold War. I find
the devastating appeal
of the scent of your hubris
utterly rancid. You repeat this
is “the end of history”; you sport
a white armband and wave
your Cross and celebrate and expand
your Law in place of
Justice; you say civilisation’s been
perfected via Christianity,
the Enlightenment and Free Market
Capitalism. Yet I stare at the infernos
of history’s unstoppable
barbarities. I watch my own
skin blister and melt in the endless
flames; and I know my cells
are cinders and my words the scars
of past and present burnings; for
my presence is the chimney-pipe
where the smokes and spectres
merge above the high-rise
turrets of your fortresses
where the despised are disposed of
in the oven; and your children
grin and warm their hands
and rejoice in the “happy ending”
of a grotesque, endless history.
III.
He fed my passport to the flames
and rubbed his hands above the fire.
His frosted fingers trembled. I
saw my breath linger like a ghost
a transient fog. It disappeared
into the night’s bleak, biting air.
At our latitude, the winter’s
cold stung our skin and shook our bones.
“We’ll have to cross the border now
before the guards restart the watch,”
he spoke as I beheld my face
crinkle amid the fading flames.
My picture, parents, date-of-birth,
my name and my nationality
were soon cinders, and I shivered
and buried my hands in my jacket.
© 2006, Ali Alizadeh
From: Eyes in Times of War
Publisher: Salt Publishing, Cambridge, UK
From: Eyes in Times of War
Publisher: Salt Publishing, Cambridge, UK
Poems
Poems of Ali Alizadeh
Close
The Incinerator
I.You, domain of debris and ash;
whose fire constructed your black towers?
In whose excited furnace fire
and fiery science dared to collude?
Which architect designed your walls
of bricks and charred human sinews?
Whose pestle crushed the bones and lives
to fashion mortar for cobblestones?
Which creator made the people the fuel
to burn as torches on coal-black nights?
Which authority sanctioned the heat
that melted nature to mould your towns?
Your proud, infernal landmarks are raised
by whom? By whose dire commandments?
II.
After Jacques Derrida
You say this is the end
of history; I sense
fresh fumes rising
from the wreckage. You say
this is not at all
a wreckage, this wonderful
destination. You note
the revolutions and the fires
naming us the victors
of the “timeless” conflict. I feel
nothing is timeless;
humanity has always been
a victim and an effect
of time’s cruelties. You point
at the palaces
erected upon the ruins, the Light
on the Hill; “at the end
of the tunnel”. I’m suffocating
and smouldering in the furnaces
of your Kingdom. I see
there’s never been
such horror, not even at the first
apocalypse when your likes saw
the Four Riders. Or was it all
a macabre fantasy? You say
you’re not a fantasist but
an Enlightened observer. You cite
philosophers and scientists
and declare that you’re not
a fanatic. I am an observer too
and have seen carrions extracted
from bombed ruins and charred
martyrs in urns paraded
down the streets. I’ve smelt
the cooked flesh of
the children devoured by the fires
of your Cold War. I find
the devastating appeal
of the scent of your hubris
utterly rancid. You repeat this
is “the end of history”; you sport
a white armband and wave
your Cross and celebrate and expand
your Law in place of
Justice; you say civilisation’s been
perfected via Christianity,
the Enlightenment and Free Market
Capitalism. Yet I stare at the infernos
of history’s unstoppable
barbarities. I watch my own
skin blister and melt in the endless
flames; and I know my cells
are cinders and my words the scars
of past and present burnings; for
my presence is the chimney-pipe
where the smokes and spectres
merge above the high-rise
turrets of your fortresses
where the despised are disposed of
in the oven; and your children
grin and warm their hands
and rejoice in the “happy ending”
of a grotesque, endless history.
III.
He fed my passport to the flames
and rubbed his hands above the fire.
His frosted fingers trembled. I
saw my breath linger like a ghost
a transient fog. It disappeared
into the night’s bleak, biting air.
At our latitude, the winter’s
cold stung our skin and shook our bones.
“We’ll have to cross the border now
before the guards restart the watch,”
he spoke as I beheld my face
crinkle amid the fading flames.
My picture, parents, date-of-birth,
my name and my nationality
were soon cinders, and I shivered
and buried my hands in my jacket.
From: Eyes in Times of War
The Incinerator
Sponsors
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère