Collected Poems by Anthony Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕

if he were

Already the deliverer. You have kept his name

Alive of their lips, though in a whisper, these twenty years.

So now he is an Israelite who has killed an Egyptian.

There is no promise of anything save further servitude.

We must go on grovelling to Egyptian gods for, believe me,

These gods will prevail and will always prevail.’ Amram, old now,

Said: ‘The voice is the voice of a prophet, my son,

But the words are a slave’s words.’ Wild-eyed, Aaron:

‘I see things as they are. I am not, like my sister here,

Wild-eyed.’ And Jochebed the old woman: ‘When he

When he walks into this house – ’ Aaron: ‘If, if.

He must leave, or else be a sacrifice to Egypt.

He will have no time for walking into houses.’

But she: ‘When he talks into the house of his parents,

I shall be expected to have words, but what words

I do not know. I loved a child I lost.

And now I must expect the pain of learning to

Love a child who is found. And must be lost again.’

But Moses, walking alone, touching and smelling this

Alien race, finding it not alien, exerting authority

That did not seem to him that of an alien, came to a place

Where one Israelite fought another, both bloody from fists,

With a divided crowd making cockfight noises,

And cried ‘Stop this’ so that they stopped an instant,

But only that one of the fighters could pant out: ‘Ah,

The Lord Moses. Are you come then to be our judge?

To strike us down as you struck the Egyptian down?’

And Moses said nothing but felt the tremor of the

Fear of the hunted, wondering why. ‘Moses,’ the jeer went,

‘Our judge and our executioner?’ A boy in the crowd

Came to Moses and tugged at the princely robe

And spoke and Moses bent to hear, not understanding,

Not at all well understanding, not at first.

But Dathan, blood washed off, bruised, limping,

But in his best robe, understood well enough,

Going from man to man in authority,

Telling his story: ‘I have served well, sir, my lord,

And it is my ambition to serve better.

I would not utter the dirty word payment, of course – ’

You will be paid whatever your information

Is worth. Do not waste time.

‘I had thought of, perhaps, some small promotion.’

Do not waste time. ‘Waste time, no. I have witnesses

Outside to testify to the murder of our overseer,

A good just man. A senseless murder, if I may say so.’

Do not. ‘The Lord Moses was the slayer.’

He had authority to exert discipline. Go on.

‘The Lord Moses, with respect, sir, had no such authority.

He is an Israelite. The Princess Bithiah

(May her soul have rest) took him out of the Nile.

It is a long story which I will be happy to tell.

He is the son of Jochebed and Amram of the tribe of Levi.

He was saved by his sister in the old time of the

Necessary execution of the children.’ And then,

Not liking the silence, ‘I tell no lie. Sir, my lord,

Gentlemen, I tell no lie.’ But the silence was the

Silence of rumination of the delectable bread of

Coming intrigue. There were some who hated Moses.

Something unegyptian about him. Bastard spewed by the river.

Stories, stories. ‘I tell no lie.’ Give him some

Bauble or other. Tell him to wait outside.

And the boy from the crowd led Moses to Miriam,

By a tree near the house of Amram. Miriam spoke,

Moses listened, things coming clear, though in pain.

‘You believe?’ she asked. ‘Believe?’ He said: ‘I was told

Of a taking from the water. My mother. As I

Called her. Hid nothing. Save for names. And names

She did not know. Perhaps not. Wishing to know.

Said that I was nourished. On Israelite milk. That a

Girl of the Israelites. Found me my nurse.’ And Miriam:

‘I know the palace, can describe the chamber,

The gardens. There was an inscription said,

Or they said it said, he was to be born in the

House of a king, but a lady said that every

House in Egypt was a house of the king.’ Moses: ‘Who?

Who?’ She said: ‘He who was to come, the child of the

Sun they called him. But to me he was to be

More than the child of the sun. Will you come home?’

‘You mean,’ he said, ‘I am to. Find a mother?’

Miriam said: ‘You are to find a family.’

Torches, horsemen, heralds positioning themselves

Among public effigies, effigies, the political men at work,

The trumpet and then the proclamation:

‘Be it known that Moses the Israelite,

Once falsely known as the Lord Moses,

Stands accused of the murder of a

Servant of the king, a free man, an Egyptian.

Let him be rendered up to authority.

Any who hide him or otherwise grant comfort

Render themselves liable to the exaction of the

Capital penalty. So written, so uttered.’

So the time for shy discovery in the house of Amram,

For the turning of an Israelite into an Israelite,

Was not long. The fine Egyptian silks

Were stuffed in a hollow in the wall, lidded with a stone,

And the Lord Moses was turned into an Israelite,

In a worn grey cloak, with the wanderer’s staff

In hands that were not yet hands of an Israelite.

He smiled. ‘I will learn to be an Israelite.

But not in. Slavery. In exile rather. Not a

Slave. Merely a. Fugitive.’ They wept. Miriam said:

‘We shall be together in the time of the setting free.’

But Aaron, bitterly: ‘If ever such a time should come.’

But Moses, not yet understanding: ‘In the time of the.’

The time that stretched now was the time of understanding,

Trying to learn to understand. With the sun setting,

He set his face to the desert. Be it known that

Moses the Israelite. Set his face to the desert.

3

THE BURNING BUSH

IT was not, he thought, if it could be called thought,

This shuffling or churning in his skull,

That the desert was empty. The desert was not empty,

Far far from empty: it was a most intricate poem

On the theme of thirst and hunger, it was a

Crammed gallery of images of himself, suffering,

And it rang with songs that never got beyond

The opening phrase, like: Went to find an Israelite

And found himself athirst or I am baked meat

I cannot eat. Once in joy he contended with

The collective appetite of a million flies

Over a migratory quail, almost