The Ziggurat

        At Babel
We stand at the crater's edge
And see not one brick remains upon another.
    But there in the distance
    is Saddam's palace
    white as an egret perched on the hill,
As below us the river,
      vague,
            circumlocutory,
Heaves itself towards Basra.

      Following us
Are men who search for the worst things in the world.
          They look in tombs, in children's desks,
          under a jackass's tail.
Why not tell them, Nazaar,
That the formula they crave
...