The Ideal Site for the Crime

I

To the child alive and well
caught up in her thoughts
obliquely
on this Monday with things to do
she heads toward the lot
where Sunday she'll be laid to rest

There is an evil person
who loves you
don't look now
he's coming from far away
to meet up with you
he knows
you're not afraid of him

His heart brand new
the brain eaten away
by twenty-five years of hatred
he's coming closer
a hero
for your calm youth

In exactly two days
you'll be cut to pieces
by an heroic double-edged sword
this is a first move
a prelude to love

a few little bites
in your life line and
the shattered membrane shocked
spurts forth
your thoughtful look
your joy no going back

uninterrupted cascade
all your blood
welling to the surface

II

To Tuesday's student
massacred Wednesday
buried Thursday

Don't stop to pick
the too red
December crocuses

There is a young man who loves you
clothed in white terror
Don't rush to meet him
Don't tremble when he sees you

He's only after dread
He has one desire only
to see pure terror
rise in your eyes

This young man is a flame-thrower
he will reduce you to ashes
before the day is out

He wants only
to catch your breath
between the pages of night
put it on the cross Friday
forget it Saturday
leafing through
the frozen specks of his
short memory

meanwhile your brief life
oozes like childhood
around the edge of your dreams
which he will have taken from you
without asking

III

To the young woman of the morning
who will be mowed down
at five in the evening
her place is marked already
under snow that flies up
behind her muted step

you will be carried to the earth
in a car like dark water
filed in thought
since the dawn of your meeting
among this scarlet week's
cut roses

There is a jackal who loves you
dangerously
He wants to touch your heart
and today makes ready
to riddle it with bullets

Yesterday he tried to close
the threshold of your flesh
with the iron padlock
of his iron love
and on your youthful body
like on an antique chest
he almost placed the seals

You are his shadow
cast for all eternity
no matter what

His fierce love
is phosphorescent
in the day's opaque light

It's you or him
It's your life against his
It's your heart against his

IV

To the schoolgirl of late morning
quietly writing
who will die a violent death
that afternoon
reciting
her adultered history lesson

Be careful
There is a boy who loves you
helplessly
You are in danger

He is born of man without end
born of haunted night
determined to destroy you
since your very first day

Your body
is the privileged portion of space
he chose
to annihilate
He gave himself the mission
to rid the species
of your tenacious existence

You are in danger
in your classroom
as the setting sun glints
off your cheek

He is the secret weapon
that bursts into the room
and before the blackboard
engineers
the fatal blow
the fall
for ever and ever

He forbids you ever
to go through this door
the way your brother can,
the heart beating

-Louky Bersianik

Death Wish

Bury me anywhere,
Somwhere near a tree
Some place where a horse will graze
and gallop over me.
Bury me
Somewhere near a stream,
When she floods her banks
I'll give her thanks
For reaching out to me
In my childhood scene;
But please -
don't bury me
In Golders Green.

-Spike Milligan, Italy, 1944