David Kessel

Ruby Courage

for the late Pat Walters

Long before and after Mankind

the wooded hillsides echo with

the call of the wood-pigeon at dusk.

Grey are the street’s wherein my heart lies

and blacker the clouds heavy with rain.

(Earth-shank-hunger blocked in my backbone).

The sweet surge of heroin in a cold back room,

the smell of nuclear wind in the morning,

and the aftermath: alone as never before.

Addicted to life, all life, we may withstand.

In a Hackney street, huge-hearted Pat Walters

arguing and singing her black gospels,

martyred by our indifference.

And a young Sepp Dietrich*, a very English genocidal gent

against ECT – racked O’Dunnel with his ruby courage.

(A plague of pukka-sahibs outside my window,

each one a cipher and a hyena).

Hard to survive, tender to live.

Can’t take the wind and the rain away from us.

The pain of the pavements and the wonder of the skies.

* Himmler’s right-hand man – the butcher of the Balkans.

David Kessel © 2008