Iraq

The leaden goddess with her cruel & servile, sectarian gods —
            suicide furies, precision harpies, majestic rage —
                        & no water to be drunk!

Babylonian streets of murdered skin & silken blood —
            terrace upon terrace inlaid with suffered pain,
& on the lowest cobalt terrace the Kurdish girls weep yellow tears
            over the imprisoned & the dead

Whole rivers prayed of tears,
            & no water to be drunk!

The mercenaries of Rome, bud-breast daughters & sons,
repent the vile heat & kneel to the fasces,
            pray sad to the fasces, spit on the fasces,
                        spill blood on the fasces

& guilt that is in us, upon us,
streams in black endless wave from the fetishised screen
            — eyeless, irreal! —
the murdered skin & silken blood of Iraqi dead
            & the soldiers of Rome

Washington, D.C., 2005

Saddam at the Gallows

& the uncertainty of every hanging is this —

When the body falls, whose neck is it that breaks?
            whose blood is it that stills & pools?
            whose heart that blackens, dies, & is changed?

Whose the last voice, last eye, last hand

            that gleams in the judged & hooded face?

Whose the fury? whose remorse?
            whose the terror? whose ruin?

Whose quietude & new-dug grave?

London, 2009