Kafka’s
Outsiders
Kafka is still the rage in Prague
the little mother with sharp claws;
Like a cockroach he is that refuses
to be driven from the bathroom.
The day Germany
Kafka went swimming after noon;
He could feel seasick on dry land;
But we must take him as he is.
But is it possible to know
a ghost who refuses to answer
directly and then certifies
his stories for oblivion?
He did
have an eye for detail;
a climbing
biplane dips darkly,
on
descent glistens in the sun;
the death-machine harrow has teeth.
What do
our flea-beard selves see there?
The am ha'aretz barred
from law?
The george-samsa
insect sense-stunned
before the spider’s dazzling web?
Or Joseph K slave to diktat?
He is in the predicament
of any person in detention
forced to prove their innocence.
Does K die like calm Socrates?
No: it is wie ein Hund he dies,
Robbed of dignity and value,
Slave to the law’s
practised caprice.
Kafka wants things to be better,
for the outsiders to prevail;
In the hard anti-Judaic gaze
he knew well the outsider’s fate.
But the harrow that wounded him
Was his fear of love in bare flesh;
He never found an axe to crack
the frozen ocean within him.
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