One of the clear advantages of being a member of a Poetry Group is rejection!  Not that the people in my group would be that rude, no, but when you say something which doesn't have a link to the people listening, they say so.
          Last night my 'poetic' thoughts on the given subject were met with a 'sounding silence' and blank incomprehension!  I had enjoyed writing the piece and it was especially galling to have it so obviously failing.  Still, that is what these evenings are for: not to massage the ego but to strengthen it!
          I feel that I had said something worthwhile.  I fully accept that this was not immediately clear to those listening to what I had written.  It gave me pause for thought.
          I have been working on the bones of what I said and produced something which I hope is an improvement on what I first wrote.
          I think that the key change was in the personal pronoun, to emphasise that the 'torturer' is another, not myself.  After all, the idea of actually burning Macbeth makes me physically sick!
          As I always say, and apparently to en empty universe, I would really appreciate comments on my poems.  As with the reception of the original version of this, rejection has made me work harder.  I am not saying that this is the final draft of my ideas and, to that end, any other comments will make my task easier!

Torture 

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.

Heinrich Heine

  

He tore Macbeth from

the Collected Works.

Crumpled the pages,

formed a little heap

and put a match to it.

And as he watched it burn,

with a sardonic look

he turned to me and said,

“The Queen, my lord, is dead!”

Instincitively, I said,

“She should have died hereafter;

there would have been a time for such a word. 

Tomorrow – “

He raised a hand.

The insubstantial

charred remains

fell into dust;

the last faint wisps of smoke

seemed curled like letters in the air

– but I had lost their sense.

“And tomorrow,” he said.

He touched the ashes’ residue.

His blackened fingers then

inscribed a cross upon my cheek.

“And tomorrow,” he said again,

“we have another

book to burn.”

I am conscious, as I read through this again, that a memory of The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is underlying the idea of this poem. I am hardly surprised, reading it made a lasting impression on me and I would recommend anyone reading the detective story that fills out the volumes of The Brothers Karamazov just for that digression alone!