In Belsen,
from the flagstone path that swerves
past one mass grave
shaped like a flat-topped Neolithic long-barrow
to the next mass grave,
and wanders too
beside free-standing headstones
bearing individual names or family names,
Anne Frank’s among them,
that cannot be placed exactly
where the bodies lie
but remember them,
I brought away a pine cone,
one of thousands darkening the ground.
I carried it home and placed it here
on my windowsill in the open air
and milder English sun.
Now its stiff woody elements,
brown with darker brown fringes,
have turned into a creature
with manifold silent mouths
all stretched open to their fullest extent.
When I pick it up
it is lighter than before,
almost weightless between my fingers
but rustling faintly as I revolve it,
taking me back to the tree that reared above me
with its baked and fissured trunk,
and the stone path I was halfway down,
and the graves I had passed
and those still to come
flattened under their gloss of flowering heather
and spirals of lark song.
Little one. Little
creature abandoned.
Tell me
what should I do next
with your useless beauty.
I breathe. I exclaim
when your brittle weight passes
from my hand onto the windowsill again;
the breeze catches and rolls it,
threatening a fall,
then a moment later drifts idly away
and there you stay.
Finis
Bare facts and staggering multitudes: what hope
what possible hope left for language with finish?
Light. Knock. Road. Engine. Rail. Truck. Cold. Night.
Whatever these words meant, they no longer mean.
*
A conductor’s baton twitches to the left or right:
this one has been selected to die, this one not yet.
Clothes. Belt. Shoes. Watch. Ring. Gold tooth. Hair.
Silence is singing instead from the guts of a violin.
*
Not to go mad, or to go mad and understand madness,
to gaze steadily on the world with the eyes of Lazarus.
Lager. Barracks. Bunks. Kapos. Musselmans. Chimney.
The mind cannot skip the air and mingles with smoke.
*
Buried in each, the appearance they still remember
but transparent, with no existence in the others near.
Work. Soup. Mud. Work. Snow. Work. Soup. Gone.
The body is murdered over and over devouring itself.
*
A white plain outside under the flight of the crows
and men standing there like a spinney of withered trees.
Sky. Cloud. Earth. Grass. Bird. Field. Hedge. Wheat.
Prayer rising and God’s spittle falling on bare heads.
*
What hope, what possible hope for finish? My father,
I wanted to tell you something, but I did not know what.
Language, the tip flickering to and fro, threw out a voice.
A wavering flame … like a speaking tongue … so I set forth …
A Tile from Hiroshima
Look at it this way
mud
sludge
sand
scooped from the bay
a mould
fired
at a thousand degrees
glittery green-black
inside the typical
grey
and
dull earth worn underfoot
made
a roof overhead
*
Look at it this way
Democritus coined atomos
solid
unchanging
particles
then
two thousand years
with the vaults of nature
locked
and silence in the laboratories
silence on this at least
before
a shape
John Dalton
he gave the idea a shape
a sphere
or millions of billiard balls
and
every one changeable
if
they are left to themselves
with energy very great energy
fizzing in space containing
particles like
like what
like marbles
Rutherford says
or planets
miniature planets revolving
call them
the whisper of nature
changeable yes
vibrating yes
and quick to jump
jumping from one
one orbit or shell to another
vibrating like
like a wave like what
like violin strings like what
continue
look at it this way
Chadwick decides
this
the neutron this
the positron this
the charged electron
speeding the particle up
smashing them
but
no chain
not yet no nothing
like trying to shoot down birds from the sky
in the dark
in a country with
very few birds
look at it this way
uranium
ah
that is the chain
beginning
that
is the heat
the light
the natural order of things
interrupted
that
I may rise
and stand
that
and bend your force to break
*
Look at it this way. From the observation plane flying high
over the city with sunlight rippling along its silver belly
there is a clear view of offices and schools and factories
and wood-frame houses all with roofs of the same dark tiles
fanning over the six flat islands formed by the seven rivers
branching at regular intervals from the principal river the Ota
and a population of two hundred and forty-five thousand souls
including ten thousand enslaved Koreans with the pensioners
already working to make firebreaks in case those are needed
and troops and others digging trenches in the surrounding hills
where they expect to fight to the last man following the invasion
and children tearing up pine roots to make oil for airplane fuel
or moulding fist-sized sand-balls held together by a floury paste
which are intended to be thrown from a safe distance into the fire
and before the plane vanishes from sight also several fine bridges
that even from such a height appear to sway in the salmonish sun
now that a warm front has settled across this part of the Empire
and black water beneath that looks so pure it must be drinkable.
*
Now a second plane also very high
invisible in fact
but look at it this way
a Superfortress
stripped rewired
modified
No. 82 Enola Gay
for the mother of Commander Tibbets
since she supported Tibbetts
when he d
ropped out of Med School
and forty kilometres out
Captain Lewis adding to his log
Everyone has a big hopeful look on his face.
*
Look at it this way
was it a meteor striking
was it a gigantic photograph
taken by the Americans
was it a Molotov Flower Basket
made of separate charges
was it the sun falling from the sky
was it magnesium powder
exploding when it made contact
with the city power system
was it a new weapon entirely
a genshi bakudan
the original child bomb.
*
Imagine at least imagine
a bell-shape in the air
a dome-shape
dead centre beneath the detonation
and the flash the blast
rushing out through streets above
sewers
below ground
and
the bodies of the population
look at it this way
a bell-shape
and roof tiles on every house
where
every house stood
like fish scales melting
not melting quite
glossy
glossy and slipping
down slipping
down through fire
ash ghost
nothing
to sweat there.
*
Look at it this way no longer
the roof overhead and sparrows arguing there
but a tile weeping in the dustbowl of the house
no longer
the breakfast ration of rice steaming on a table
but a still-unripe pumpkin roasted on the vine
no longer
the shadow patrolling among water lily leaves
but a carp poached belly-up in its own juices
no longer
the X-ray plate lying undeveloped in the in-tray
but the same plate printed with a pure whiteness
no longer
the rush hour traffic stalled crossing a bridge
but hundreds of mangled bicycles without tyres
no longer
a rain shower sweeping down from a low cloud
but moisture-drops with the weight of marbles
no longer
a doctor among ruins handing out good advice
but Excuse me for having no burden like yours
no longer
men women and children walking towards you
but the skin slithering from their hands and faces
but burn-prints of metal buckles and suspenders
but eye sockets empty because eyes have melted.
*
Look at it
this way
here is Dr Bronowski what
is he doing
here in the rubbish
here among weeds
the weeds
that spring from ashes
the bluets and Spanish bayonets
goosefoot
the morning glories
day lilies
feverfew
panic grass panic
grass feverfew glories
he is collecting he is
choosing this tile from the ruins
he knows
what does he know
he knows
a tile of this type
is locally used melting point
thirteen hundred degrees
what else
he knows the ascent of man
he thinks he knows
how one thing
becoming another thing
in the ascent
descends
and
senna he knows
sickle senna
so much so many
here at the centre the eye
the plane
might almost have dropped it
almost
but senna
dropped from a plane
the very idea
look at it this way
here
though burned
though fired to a deeper black
a glossier black
in the melting
here
with feverfew
panic grass panic grass
here is the tile
the tile which jumped to his hand
and settled
and settled
surviving
look at it
this way.
The Fence
I found my way home but it was not until summer
ended that my mother brought herself to ask me
to make good the fence that marks our boundary.
I went out there with a box of nails and a hammer
and when a flock of crows in the trees surrounding
made some comment, I remembered how the birds
living by Shamash Gate spoke in perfect harmony
with mortar shells falling. Then I began knocking
nails into the wood and everything near took fright
although not my mother, who continued watching
from her chair on the porch. I have said nothing yet
of what it is like to reach the exact point where one
place becomes another, with no way forward or back,
and there is nothing else left to do except fall down.
Peace Talks
1 War Debts
I started
living with Debbie when I was fifteen,
but I was never the best-behaved boy in school
so obviously she had a bit of a battle there.
Then I went to college but I sacked that,
so my sister’s boyfriend
he asked me
have you thought about joining the army,
and I told him
I’ve not
but I will now,
and next thing there I was
doing my Phase One at Purbright,
then Lark Hill
the rolling plains.
We knew
right
we knew we were going out,
and it was like,
guys,
this is going to be tough.
Did you know Camp Bastion is the size of Reading?
I didn’t know.
And ninety-five degrees with your body armour.
You wonder how they miss you to be honest,
throwing their stuff over the walls.
But they do miss you
most of the time.
One of my mates, he got hit, though,
I say hit,
by a shower of Afghan fingers.
Suicide bomber in the road outside.
Normally the alarm gets you first
but even then you’ll be
wow,
wow,
something is real.
My friends at home
can’t understand what I’m saying.
It’s the anticipation I’m used to.
It’s the news I’m waiting to hear.
No rumours.
Everyone quiet and waiting for the facts.
Surreal if I’m honest.
Surreal when I get back.
The ease. The slow pace.
In Subway, for instance.
Cucumbers. Tomatoes.
You think:
Get it done now, so everyone can go.
Just come on!
Then you leave
and road works are everywhere
with nothing moving.
And rain pattering down
and clouds covering the stars.
The war debts will come out then.
You think:
my weapon
where is my weapon?
And you look for it.
You did everything with you
r weapon
and urgh
you miss it.
Nobody understands.
You miss it.
You went to the toilet with it.
And the shower with it.
You went running with it.
You did everything with it.
If you had a doss bag,
you kept it close as you could,
or in your doss bag
sort of thing.
It’s trust, you see,
you have to trust your weapon.
It’s individual.
I’m Stephen North.
Lance Bombardier Stephen North.
2 Ficklety
This time we were looking at transition, the next incarnation.
It’s interesting. Soldiers carry a lot on their hats you know,
and we talk together about sadness, the ficklety of mortality.
One man, he was always getting sand out of his nose and ears,
and as more sand came to him, more and more sand and dust,
he counted it, he knew how many grains of sand there were.
As for me, I read the Psalms. The wilderness. The helplessness.
The rocks, stones, wind and thorn trees. I encountered them all.
But a dog collar? No. Collar crosses instead and a tactical flash.
Then I came home and here are my children and my little list:
roof needs fixing, grass needs a cut, the long green grass,
we need such and such for the kitchen, bathroom, everywhere,
and aah I’ve wrapped the car round a tree, aah. It’s interesting.