Washing of Hands …
Water boiling
Under canvas
Little Malaya
(Pissing down)
With minor surgery
Planned
Some clumsy grunt
Through a windscreen
Glass
To be removed
Cuts
Sutured
I wash my hands in the prescribed manner
In the prescribed manner
I wash my hands
I must avoid spreading infections
I must cleanse my hands before and after examining patients
I must cleanse my hands between examining infected and clean body sites
Even when working on the same patient
I must wash my hands
Cleansing may involve soap
And
Water
(Pissing down)
Water alone
Or
Alcohol rubs
Today it is water alone
The rain rattles
Like Bren gun fire
On the canvas roof
Today we have the washing of hands
This is not easy
The water isn’t running
It was running
When it was boiled
Twenty minutes ago
Now it is cooling
Rapidly
In that stainless
Rain-filled
Old
Steel
Bowl
I stand over it
Like
Hecate
My genius rebuk’d
(so fair is foul and foul is fair)
My hands hover
Chopper-like
In this fog and filthy air
And I am washing
Washing
Washing my hands
I am washing my hands
I am washing my hands
And it bodes well
This
Washing of hands
I do not understand
Yet
Why
It bodes well
It
Just
Does
To-day we have daily cleaning …
Scrubbing
Dumping glass
Bloodied gauze
Field dressings applied
Syringes
Needles
(Those too)
I dispose of these
Having
First
Hidden them
In my kit
(My blood runs hot)
My
Lifeblood
Coupled
With
These
Sharp
Cutting tools
This
Stabbing
Jabbing
Life-affirming
Gear
He is tidied up
Quiet
I tidy up
(on fire)
Today we have the washing of blood
I have washed up before …
Before blood
I have washed up after …
After blood
I have washed away blood
That sanguine smell
Forever
Ever in my nostrils
Like cordite
Like the scream of creatures in the night
Like fear itself
Like the fear
I cannot wash away
Like my fear
My fear
The fear I cannot wash away
I am a witness
There is still a ‘yet to come’
I do not know
Just
What this is
But tonight we have washing of hands
Matagouri
Tangle-branched
Tiny, white Flowers
Stars weeping
Glistening glass beads
Shimmering wet
In the dry riverbed
Close by
I will lie by you
The twang of the ricochet
Overhead
The crack that kills
Unheard
I will lie by you
Without fear
If I should die
Think only this of me
That I died
Not in some foreign field
But here
At home
Dead
Of stupidity
Not mine
But
Dead all the same
On my back
The sky
Clouded grey
Gun-metal grey
Is
Unmoved
As I am
No fear there
Or
Here
My
Destiny
Is
To lie
With that small white flower
That smudge of cowardice
Close by
Close to my right hand
Then the flat flat flat
Rotor blades
Doing the rounds
As the politics departs
Reality kicks in
The sky remains the same
Trudge in
Trudge out
Kit dump
Can opened
Silence
The void
This is the no-thing
And
This …
This is
The alcohol rub
Which in this case we have not got
Hold the hands up
Point the fingers
Skywards
(as instructed by Lance Corporal Tasker)
Water running
Back
Gravity fixed
Down the arms
To the mud floor
Tasker
(who is to be believed in all things)
Though he cannot articulate
Hippocrates
Making it
Hippo
Crates
(We laugh behind his back)
Draw crude pictures
(Hippos in crates)
But
(All the same)
We point fingers skywards
And
The
Water
Runs
Down
As the blood runs out
As the blood runs out
He has taught us the washing of hands
Later
(Much)
Finding I do not care
Do not care any more
Do not care for you any more
Reminded
Of those wet days
Of that dank smell
That sanguine smell
When I cared so little
When I was at peace under fire
When I washed to be clean
Unsoiled
Washed to be sanitary
Washed to be clean of you
You
Who I did not know
Who I did not even know
You
Who I washed
Away
When we had washing of hands …
Now
I wash my hands
Of you
I wash my hands
I wash my hands of you
I hold them up
Blood runs up my arms
Up my arms
The smell of blood in my nostrils
And
I am washing my hands of you
I am washing
My hands
Of you
I remember
Branches
Plum
(I think)
Silent, eloquent gestures
Reaching up
Half lost
Behind
Mist
Steam
Steam
From the washing of hands
My hands
Dry now
Ready
And
This is my safety-catch
This washing of hands
This washing of hands
Is
My safety-catch
One easy flick of the thumb
One last flick
And it’s done
Done
The plum blossom
Fragile
Motionless
Frail
Meaningless
(Floating in space)
At last
Here is this
Harbinger
This harbinger of death
The
Purpose of this
Is to open the breech
Easing the spring
Clearing the chamber
Bathing the wound
And I wash you away
Wash you away
With the blood
With the blood
And the blood
On my hands
Is my own
Bees
(Early bees)
Assault the flowers
Fumbling
(As I would have)
Bees
Know
Falling petals
Signal
The
End
The end of this washing of hands
The plum blossom
Silent
In
All of the gardens
The bees going forward
And
Back
The first petal falls
And now we have the washing of hands ….
14 June, 2010
The Odes and Carmen Saeculare
For ladies’ love I late was fit,
And good success my warfare blest,
But now my arms, my lyre I quit,
And hang them up to rust or rest.
Here, where arising from the sea
Stands Venus, lay the load at last,
Links, crowbars, and artillery,
Threatening all doors that dared be fast.
O Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway,
And Memphis, far from Thracian snow;
Raise high thy lash, and deal me, pray,
That haughty Chloe just one blow!
The inspiration for this poem, if it can be called that, is Henry Reed’s Naming of Parts (1) and Horace’s Vixi duellis nuper idoneus, Et militavi non sine gloria (2)
(1) Reed, Henry. “Naming of Parts.” New Statesman and Nation 24, no. 598 (8 August 1942): 92
(2) Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882.
For a translation of the Horace, see printed below ‘Now We Have the Washing of Hands …’
Auckland, New Zealand
15 June 2010
dykiegirl 