I Will Not Save the World

By Jerome Rothenberg b. 1931 Jerome Rothenberg

I like to cross

these borders. They take place

between the dead & dead.

I make my mind up

to be honest

only I fail to meet

their expectations.

I will not save the world.

The power in my blood

runs through my shoe.

I have never known fatigue

but know it now. I whistle

& the dog sits still

& ponders.

Nobody else is resting

or in love.

The taste of death is in my mouth.

I suck it like an arm

until it breaks me.

It is the fate of animals

& birds

the small lives left behind.

The children in the woods

run by like children.

I hide under a blanket

sick with counting.

Two & two are five

but two times two

is always four.

Call me tomorrow

—says the voice—

& I will call you back.

I am a net for all

voracious fish (E. Södergran)

& long for hell.

"I Will Not Save the World" By Jerome Rothenberg, from A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris, copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Jerome Rothenberg. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Source: A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2003)

Biography

Jerome Rothenberg's publishing career began in the late 1950s as a translator of German poetry, first for Hudson Review and then for City Lights Books. Founding Hawk's Well Press in 1959, Rothenberg used it as a venue to publish collections by some of the up-and-coming poets of the era, including Diane Wakoski and Robert Kelly. He also self-published his first book of poems, White Sun Black Sun, under the Hawk's Well imprint. . . .

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