When I lived I was straight and stout-hearted,
I feared neither the word nor the bullet,
And I scorned all the usual ways.
But now that this life I’ve departed
They’ve made me all crippled and crooked,
With "Achilles" inscribed on the base.

I can’t shake off this granite flesh from me.
From the monument’s plinth even more so
I can’t wrench this Achillean heel.
A layer of cement presses numbly
The iron ribcage supporting my torso -
Spinal spasms are all that I feel.

I boasted fine shoulders, none broader.
Gauge their breadth!
I’d no inkling I’d face the recorder
After death.

But I’ve been forced back into line.
Straight they set
Those uneven broad shoulders of mine
For a bet.

I had no sooner died than my kindred.
The most efficient and quick ones,
Came and moulded a mask of my face.
And I’ve no idea who recommended
That they lake off my high Asian cheekbones,
But they scraped them away without trace.

I never remotely suspected
Or entertained even a thought of
My ending up deader than dead.
But they smoothed down the mask to correct it
And death’s tedious blandness smiled out of
The toothless grin in my head.

When I lived I would not put my hand out
To the sharks.
They were scared to apply common standards
To my work.

But, to measure my corpse for the coffin,
As his tool
The mortician used only a rough one,
A wood rule.

And now, a year after my burial,
As the crown of their work to adjust me,
They’ve gathered a huge crowd to gape,
And unveiled their fine solid memorial
To the sound of loud singing and lusty -
My singing, recorded on tape.

The loudspeakers blare out the music,
Their din bursting in on my stillness;
From the rooftops the spotlight beams glare.
The marvels of modern acoustics
Have reduced to a saccharine shrillness
My voice that was hoarse with despair.

I lie speechless, for so we’re all fated,
In my shroud.
Yet I hear myself bawling, castrated,
To the crowd.

My shroud is torn off - how reduced I am!
Gauge my breadth!
Like this how can I be of use to them
After death?

The Commandant’s steps were sepulchral!
I resolve, why can’t I, as of yore, then,
Walk abroad with a dull ringing tread?
In the alleys the scattered crowds skulk while,
Having wrested my fool out before them.
My shattered stone fetters I shed.

I pitch forward, stripped bare, and disfigured,
And, falling, I strain every tendon
To extend my iron claw of a limb.
As I crash, from each sound-cracked loudspeaker
My choked voice is heard, the air rending:
"It seems I’m alive still!" I scream.