AN ASSEMBLAGE IN THE OTHER WORLD

Tolstoy:
Ahriman’s²⁴ hirelings,
Warriors of kings,
Draw oppression’s sword
For a loaf of bread.
Evil is their good,
And the husk their food.
Friends of others, these
Are their own kin’s foes.

Country, church and crown
Are narcotics grown
By the masters to
Buy their slaves’ souls with.

Karl Marx:
For all his wisdom, man is not yet self-aware,
And capitalism has rendered man man’s murderer.

Hegel:
Reality is double-faced.
The orchard and the desert are
Two aspects of it that one sees.
To know the whole truth one must taste
Both grapes and bitter gourds.
So fond is Nature of antitheses
That it has set at war
Employees and employers, slaves and lords.

Tolstoy:
The two-faced Intellect with its philosophy
Of egotism bids the worker suffer patiently.

Mazdak²⁵:
Iran’s seed sprouts forth from the soil
Of the empires of the Kaisers and the Czars.
Death dances a new dance in kings’ and rich men’s palaces.
For ages does an Abraham burn in a Nimrod’s fire
Before he can cast out old idols from
The sanctuary of his Lord.
Gone is the age of Parvez, wake up now,
O victims of his tyranny.
Wrest back from him
The good things he deprived you of.

Kohkan²⁶:
Though outwardly so simple and so shy,
My loved one is a tyrant, sly
And full of mischief and deceit.
She looks all amity,
But is a fighter in reality.
Like Christ’s her tongue is sweet:
Her heart is hard like that of Genghis Khan,
That cruel man.

My intellect has broken down:
My madness will soon reach its crown;
My vision has dissolved in tears.
Appear to me: I pine for you.
My pickaxe has laid low a hill
At your command; but still
The world appears
To favour Parvez,²⁷ as you do.
From earth to sky all things seem running in a race.
The caravan moves fast: make haste, increase your pace.