My friends without shields walk on the target

    It is late the windows are breaking

    My friends without shoes leave

    What they love

    Grief moves among them as a fire among

    Its bells

    My friends without clocks turn

    On the dial they turn

    They part

    My friends with names like gloves set out

    Bare handed as they have lived

    And nobody knows them

    It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their

    Cups that are found at the wells

    And are then chained up

    My friends without feet sit by the wall

    Nodding to the lame orchestra

    Brotherhood it says on the decorations

    My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling

    With a nest of salt in his hand

    My friends without fathers or houses hear

    Doors opening in the darkness

    Whose halls announce

    Behold the smoke has come home

    My friends and I have in common

    The present a wax bell in a wax belfry

    This message telling of

    Metals this

    Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart

    And these hands one

    For asking one for applause

    My friends with nothing leave it behind

    In a box

    My friends without keys go out from the jails it is night

    They take the same road they miss

    Each other they invent the same banner in the dark

    They ask their way only of sentries too proud to breathe

    At dawn the stars on their flag will vanish

    The water will turn up their footprints and the day will rise

    Like a monument to my

    Friends the forgotten