In a cave in the side of a mountain
forty men are kneeling in a ring
chanting a song
of a single word
swaying forwards and back
sweating and wiping themselves with rags
calling out to god and god and god
driving their song into the mud
taking me with them, until at last
I stagger out blinking in the dawn
and see severed goat heads at the butcher’s stall
still preaching the word
and reeling pigeons circling
wishes from god
and stray dogs, noses dimpled with pox
gatekeepers on the rooftops
and god in the small
dark bodies of children
damp in the mist
playing in the cemetery
barefoot
in December
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
A brass dog
with two heads
shows his teeth
and wears shoes
His belly
low hung
smooth and hollow
fits the palm
His four eyes
black holes
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
Alone, bereft of love or good
I stumbled through a brain of woods
until I found a wooden shack
wasps at the front, bees at the back.
A girl appeared with jet black hair.
Her cats patrolled. One humped a chair.
She gave me soup, she gave me bread,
she took me to ‘The Evil Shed’
where tiny bodies hung on nails
and proudly wore their own entrails.
Beside a meadow’s insect hum
all life, all death rolled into one.
The wraith-like girl pulled chives and beets
and gathered eggs to make a feast
and goodness filled me as I ate.
She brought me love upon a plate.
Originally published as the foreword to Sue Webster’s, ‘Folly Acres Cookbook’ (click here to view).
we drove up the mountain
turned off the engine
climbed through a barricade
and walked towards the village
through a thousand fallen plums
the purple-black flesh
pushing out of their open skins
darkening the road.
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
One old man is saying three words,
reaching out like he wants to gather
good. His white stick taps the ground
forever. Above the rooftops
a solitary dove sings three notes over and over:
spare some change, spare some change
over the roof of the shopping mall,
spare some change
over the roof of the government building,
over the roof of the Supreme Court.
The earth yawns and turns its face a millimetre.
The moon holds up an empty plate
above the corner of 1st and D,
above the gathering of men and women.
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
I thought I saw a young girl
between two pock-marked walls.
I looked for her in the white house
that crumbled mud from its falling roof.
On a nail in the kitchen
a threadbare apron.
The husk of a corn doll
hung from the ceiling.
I asked the doll what it had seen
I asked the doll what it had seen
I looked for the girl upstairs. Found
a comb, dried flowers, a ball of red wool
unravelling. A plum tree grew through the window,
on the window ledge a photograph
in black and white, but her mouth is missing,
perished and flaked to a white nothing.
I asked the tree what it had seen
I asked the tree what it had seen
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
Boy speaks, Follow me.
Through the old city streets
you follow him past the tents
through the fog and excrement.
Smile at him. He smiles back
leads you past wooden shacks
and open gutters. Don’t fall in.
Put your feet in his footprints.
Bullet holes in the walls
form a map of the world.
Giant door with a key.
Boy turns; Follow me.
Young boy in your face
every loss I can trace.
Follow you enter in.
Put my feet in your footprints.
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
People pass the hand.
There are sounds of car horns and music.
People pass the hand that begs.
Three boys in hoods fold their arms
and swerve away from the hand,
the hand that begs in the rain.
A woman in blue will not look
at the hand that begs,
stretching out in the rain.
People come and go, looking at their phones.
Nobody takes the hand
stretching out, shining in the rain.
In the hollow of the hand
is a folded square
of paper,
but nobody looks twice at the white paper
that gleams in the hand that begs,
stretching out and shining in the rain.
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.
At the refreshments stand
near the Vietnam memorial
a boy throws out his hands
as if to feed the starlings.
But he’s throwing nothing;
it’s just to watch them jump.
Three long notes sound on a bugle
and a man in overalls
arrives to empty the trash.
He hauls it to a metal hatch
which opens to the underworld.
An alarm bell yammers.
The boy throws out his empty hands.
The starlings jump.
Taken from ‘‘The Hollow of the Hand’.’.
a revolving wheel
of metal chairs
hung on chains
squeals in the heat
Four children fly
over red dirt
A cassette tape
of a sad song
loud and harsh
from a truck
The chairs blur
and form a ring
that ends
where it begins
Taken from ‘The Hollow of the Hand’.