Job

I

Moon axe

Plunge into my marrow

That my cedar

Tomorrow may block the way

Of flaming horses

My blood’s old lions

Vainly call for gazelles

Rotting in my head are

Wormy bones

Phosphorescent

In my thorax hangs

The strange heart

II

Consume me, ancient lime

Lixiviate me, new salt

Death is happiness

And though I feed on fish

From the Dead Sea

Gleaming with iodine

In my ulcers

I tend the roses

Of death’s springtide

Seventy barns burnt!

Seven sons moldering!

Height of poverty!

Last olive tree

Out of Asia’s wasteland

Stands my skeleton

Why live I yet so?

Unsure God

You to yourself to prove

III

Last olive tree, say you?

Yet golden oil

Drops from my branches

That blessing learned

In my eyes’ glass house

Ripens the sun of the tropics

My foot-root’s rammed in marble

Hear ye Israel

I am the ten-loaved tree

I am the fire book

With the burning letters

I am the three-armed candelabrum

Indwelt by sage birds

With the seven-hued glance

Ivan Goll