The Walls


by Pavel Chichikov

I saw Jeremiah at the temple wall

Building stone by stone

A one that would not fall

'Better than the blocks that stood –

New are the stones, the mortar

Is of congealed blood,'

The prophet Jeremiah said –

'And those who use the plumb and line,

The chisel, are the risen dead

'All that we have said and done

Mistaken, wrong and stubborn

Self indulgent, is undone

'Now we have un-errored error,

Purified – obliterated

Tophet, Moloch, death and terror'

Then he held a block aloft

Scraped the clotted blood –

'It comes from when I cough

'My own lung's blood, the whitest stone,

Lime from the bones of honest men –

Stock-still is the sun

'So that we have eternity

Or nearly so to raise the walls

And yet the project keeps on till infinity

'Each time I set a stone in place

Another falls – there seems to be

A curse weighed down upon this place

'That will not let the building rise

Though I'd make shovels of my shoulder bones,

Windows of my eyes'

It is no curse that makes it fall

I said, it is your own

Sacrifice of what is not eternal

Build with the soul – but what is that

And where obtained?

Let go the walls, and it remains

Click here to follow Pavel's ongoing epic poem “The Shoulder of the Sun.” You may also visit Pavel's website at Grey Owl Press.

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