You have swallowed only stone fatherThere
are many places in this house
For a child to hide
Even though the doors are nailed shut
The windows boarded with scorched furniture:
He goes from room to room with a candle
His mouth wet with whiskey and pieces of flesh
That were set laughingly before him.
A man cannot escape the past
Nor bear the light of the future-
How slow this troop-ship returns
From Palestine
With a soul as vast and empty as the desert
Can you still see her, in the streets of Cairo,
Those strange markings on her face and body
Every inch the whore:
Slaughter is slaughter is slaughter
Blood must be spilled for blood
And you and I are trapped forever
In this house of bone
Boulders smashing into the roof
Fire hurled against the walls
For they will not let us walk away unscathed.
You devoured a pregnant hare
Caught on the waste-ground between warring
estates
But I will go down to the potter’s field instead
Where the clay is soft and rich
And make a whole man
Who has come from himself
His hands tattooed with love and hate.