A satnya
According to Herodotus,
the name of Cheops,
who had the pyramid built,
was, for generations, not uttered
by the supposedly
grateful Egyptians.
The people of Rabbah,
the rebellious Ammonite city,
were, on King David’s command,
sawn up alive,
and their remains
tossed into brick-driers.
Ptolemy Euerghetes, known as the Benefactor,
had his own son torn limb from limb
and sent to his sister-wife for dinner.
Jafar, the court jester,
got his tongue cut out
through a slicing of the larynx
at the hands of the enlightened vizier’s son.
And the century that has just ended
(the century of the child,
as zealous idealists imagined it)
towers over all its predecessors
with its piles of corpses.
What could there be to reflect on?
Ever since Homo sapiens conquered
his own nature from nature,
he has not known what to do with it.
Though ruled over by his servant,
he plays at magnificence.
More fun than mummies and daddies, shopkeepers, doctors!
The carpet of organisation woven beneath his backside,
he tries out his instruments of torture,
munching the bananas of conviction,
making his little companions eat his shit,
and concealing with a Down’s syndrome smile
his indescribable joy:
“I’m the king,
feeble old me.”
Translated by David Hill
