from: The Cup of Trembling
'Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out' Isaiah 51. 17
Habeas Corpus
The judge rejected the writ
And reproved the temerity of the lawyers.
It is, after all, irrelevant,
this insistence….
One must discourage the spanners
of quixotic absurdity
thrown into the relentless
workings of the Process.
Bodies sealed in metal
or weighted in concrete
are quite evidently
beyond the Law.
Hunger
Over there was the dump
where at night they came
and flung the bodies,
covering them hurriedly
under fifteen centimetres
of earth. They smelt
in the Summer heat.
The people lived
with the smell.
They knew.
They said nothing.
But when the rains washed
the earth away,
a hand stuck out,
an arm, the torso
of a man.
In the afternoon
they heard
sharp teeth tearing,
the sound of teeth rending,
clamping jaws gnawing
on liver and heart -
They go for the entrails first.
They dragged their trophies
back to the huts of tin
and sacking, among which
they prowled, scavenging,
always hungry.
The people squatting outside
stared emptily at first
into the hunk of meat
and bone, as the mangy bitch
cracked her teeth into the
soft cartilage of the skull -
one year old,
tender and rotting.
A young boy shouted,
threw a hard clod of earth,
frightened her off.
She started away and stopped,
snarled, and looked back
hungrily.
Shouting hoarsely
to ward off the others,
he brought a piece of sacking,
picked up the skull spilling
its small brains, torn face,
Burst eye jelly -
Retched once, twice,
three times -
Not much to bring up,
only the green mate meant
to keep the stomach
from growling.
HUNGER(Cont.)
He walked slowly,
turning his nose away,
towards the police station.
The people watched him go,
their eyes dark, arms listless.
The police took
the sackcloth bundle.
- Que fiambrecito! - they said,
opening it.
Gone off, all right.
Some tart, who did in her brat.
They shrugged.
The boy waited.
- And now get the hell
out of it, they said.
Understand?
Ab Aliena
I have eaten of the fruit
of the tree -
I have drunk
one sip from the cup -
and seen the spider,
Bergman's god,
lucidly
through a glass -
having put away
the things of a child -
the small security,
and raised my ostrich head at last
and seen the nails -
to pierce
not swallow,
bitter to the taste.
Peccavi -
I know now what the psalmist meant:
Et ab aliena parce servum tuum - aliena
They are occultis meis
visited upon me -
aliena.
Confiteor
We have kept silent.
We have pretended we did not know.
We have lied
to ourselves and to others.
We have witnessed
the attrition
of facts,
of our only selves -
Not suddenly, violently,
but slowly,
day after eroded day,
gnawed at
by the little rat lies,
the scuttering, squeaking
compromises,
the feed trough satiety -
Until our truth has crumbled
quite away -
And now we know
that four and four
make five.
Hoc Est Corpus
Or if a boot bursts an eyeball
which splits like a blood-filled grape -
They do not know whose blood
runs on the tiles
in the glaring light.
Dissociated from
the blood-stained fingerprints,
the leaders are untroubled
by identity -
Photographed
opening their mouths
to receive - all unawares -
the mangled body.
For inasmuch…
The Visitation
Because they had connections
powerful - in the highest quarters -
After many months when they had knocked,
begged, implored -
driven mad and wild and listless by turns
with uncertainty
and despair
Azrael
came one night
out of uniform
faultlessly suited,
grave, correct,
to say
- Do not seek your daughter
among the living,
for she is dead.
Some cord snapped in the father's neck
and his head fell forward
where he sat.
But the mother rose up
drawing the fullness of that death
into herself,
as once the red network of her veins
had fed the life.
- I understand, she said.
It is finished.
But I demand my daughter's body
to lay it in the family vault
with all the others of her blood.
The Visitation (cont.)
- Impossible.
The plainclothes messenger
strove to conceal his irritation
at the necrophilic obsession.
He had been constrained
by her unprocessed habits of thought
to use the word.
For hadn't they
eliminated death
together with the body
that died,
the person that had never been.
So -
there being nothing else to say
Azrael bowed
and went away.
Lord Siva, the Destroyer
Lord Siva, the Destroyer,
Do not,
Oh, do not let the sons return
until you have blinded
the mothers
and destroyed their hands,
their sense of touch.
For even without her eyes
a mother's hands would know.
One did return -
dead
(the planned destruction of the corpse
having misfired)
and the young man
tall and broad
who disappeared out of the sunlight
fourteen days before -
lay shrunk to a raw cinder,
seared from head to foot
with livid wounds,
the smashed testicles hidden
under the strangeness of the white shroud -
Beside whose coffin
the mother sat -
staring and staring
into the vacancy
of what had been his face.
Now rousing herself
to lay a finger
gently on the raw welts,
trembling
lest she hurt
unable to believe
her hands had no longer
any power to heal
beyond the barrier
of electric fire.
Obituary
She was five months old,
She owned
a pair of pink nylon pyjamas,
a plastic comforter
and the daylight.
They found
the plastic comforter
and the nylon pyjamas
(synthetic materials do not easily rot)
when, watched by her grandparents,
they dug the bones up
out of the nameless grave.
There was a bullet hole
in the skull.
Her brother and sister's skulls
had bullet holes too
- and her mother's -
but her father's head
had been blown off,
when at ten o'clock that night
they blasted their way
into her home
with guns and mortars
and hand grenades.
'Once the action was over it was found that
inside the building there were five dead
terrorists as yet unidentified….
The military forces taking part suffered
no losses.'
Communiqué No….
Command Zone No…
Because they had connectionspowerful - in the highest quarters -After many months when they had knocked,begged, implored -driven mad and wild and listless by turnswith uncertaintyand despairAzraelcame one nightout of uniformfaultlessly suited,grave, correct,to say- Do not seek your daughteramong the living,for she is dead.Some cord snapped in the father's neckand his head fell forwardwhere he sat.But the mother rose updrawing the fullness of that deathinto herself,as once the red network of her veinshad fed the life.- I understand, she said.It is finished.But I demand my daughter's bodyto lay it in the family vaultwith all the others of her blood.The Visitation (cont.)- Impossible.The plainclothes messengerstrove to conceal his irritationat the necrophilic obsession.He had been constrainedby her unprocessed habits of thoughtto use the word.For hadn't theyeliminated deathtogether with the bodythat died,the person that had never been.So -there being nothing else to sayAzrael bowedand went away.