Funeral Jars

Whenever I travel statues trace me.

Asia Minor aches with sepulchers,
As contagious tumours.
Beneath the dunes that rise like
Mercury in a thermometer
History is subsumed in Mesopotamian
Funeral Jars.

The dead died again on seeing
Camouflage to be their new lament.

Even Cassandra stays silent when
Ishtar and Nergal wince in
Wedding dances' tumult.
Oracles would shudder to see
Our Alexander in the bloody baths
Of Babylon and our Diogenes
Giving another,
Commercial assent.

Wine jars grope for a regal mouth
To crack in haste and to ex-
Pat to a private museum.

Strange people! You are not in Iraq,
But battle in Babylon.

A tired leader faints:
He who drinks from
Nebuchadenezzar's jars
And slights the inscription.

The sky is slit open
With a daily flight
Washington - Baghdad,
Number AV Enge 9/11,

The feverish dune swells with
Papyri that do not recognize
A new-faced god embossed in clay.

Strange people! Not even in Babylon:
In Canopic jars
In the Pergamon Museum.