Uncollected Poems (4): On a Line by Valéry

for Paul Blackburn

Caesar did it too
– into the snow
at night –
& Stalin
by a wall behind
the Kremlin.
Gandhi too
& Shakespeare,
pissing in a line
like sleepers.
This is the prophecy
of Valéry
& Blackburn:
we are little men.

22.iii.85

[This poem was recovered, along with numerous others, for a volume of Uncollected Poems to be published by Mark Weiss and Junction Press.]