John Kent Jr
John Kent Jr had lived through two wars
lost his father in the first, fought in the second
he was the man who knew what to do
when Billy Costie’s bull got loose in our field
great big British White doing his business
amongst our wee Limousins
no-one knew till almost full term
their sides ballooning like zeppelins
skin stretched tight as an H bomb
eyes boggling terrified from their heads
John Kent Jr comes down in his tractor
shining coil of wire slung in the back
a hare he’d hit on the way
dangling by its hind legs
from the wing mirro
dark stuff dripping
from its open mouth
leaving glistery black splashes
on our new tarmac drive
right, says John Kent Jr jumping down
sliding knuckle-scabbed hands
into cracked leather gloves,
let’s get to,
and off he sets
for the fenced-in kye
us bairns running alongside him
whooping and cheering
just bairns
not kenning
what like it would be
he digs a deep hole beside our Daisy
takes off the gloves and gently slides
first a knife, then the wire
inside her, Daisy
moaning slow
eyes rolling in her
gentle head
as John Kent Jr
strains foot braced
against her
backside wire
wrapped round now
gloved hands arms
see-saw slicing
through the
first bit of
unborn
calf houking out
head and foreleg
amidst a
mud slide
of blood
and skitter
smell of metal
and shit
sweat
slipping
down his
shining face
a gloved hand gripping
the calf’s foreleg
the curious angle
of the dangling head
as he flips it
away from him
the curve and bounce
of it thumping down
on the hard ground
he stands up
laying palms flat
on the cow’s back
both their heads lowered
both panting
holy hell
says John Kent Jr
that wis a tough een
he stops to roll a rollie
big fingers fumbling untidily
with the fiddly paper
smears of dark stuff slicked
down the side of it
he sticks it in his mouth
the trigger click-click
as he tries to ignite
the damn thing
this damn wind
but at last he
lights up, right
he says
let’s get to
a doodle-bug whine escaping from his nose
lips fixed tight round the rollie
clouds of fag smoke
mushrooming round his head
as he rips and tugs
falls back gasping
then back up and in
up to the elbows
grasping for the last of it
Daisy bogles
and a red explosion
slops at their feet
a winged shadow crosses the field
the rook’s skrek trailing ragged
behind it as
Daisy nuzzles her disembodied
calf’s head
nuzzling
nudging
licking
licking
at those forever
closed eyes
until John Kent Jr
hauls it away from her
hurls it into the dark earth
takes off the gloves
gives a pfft on the rollie
picks it from his lips
stands staring at the
fenceposts
the wire stretched tight
between them
like a row of crosses
says
almost to himself
aye weel
there’s worse things in life
drops the fag butt into the pit
houks, spits
shovels earth
more earth
over the top
of it all
Nazi War Museum, Dortmund, 2005
In the end it was
not the hatred.
It was not the instruments of torture in the shadowy basement
the thumb screws and knee cap hammers
even a rack, grotesque and cartoon-like
in the darkness in the bowels of the prison.
Neither was it the lampshades
displayed in the grey cells on the ground floor, made by stretching human
skin tightly across a frame to the point of translucence
so fairytale gruesome they seemed far-fetched, too far beyond
my ken.
No.
It was in a corridor on one of the upper levels
bathed in sunlight that streamed through a high arched window:
a letter from a mother whose six year old disabled son
had been taken from her
and put in a concentration camp.
Please,
she wrote, I know he is not perfect but really
he is no bother to me. He will be frightened without me
and my heart aches to think of it. He is just a poor boy
and I love him so much. Please, won’t you
let him come home?
That was what emptied me.
Not the hatred
but the absence of love.
To know that it was possible to exist in a world
where love meant nothing.
Nothing.
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