Jerusalem - a poem by James Fenton

To hear the British poet James Fenton read this work in full, click this link here. Excerpted from New Selected Poems (2006)

Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone,
And the interrogation will not die
For there is no eternal city
And there is no pity
And there is nothing underneath the sky
No rainbow and no guarantee –
There is no covenant between your God and me.
2
It is superb in the air.
Suffering is everywhere
And each man wears his suffering like a skin.
My history is proud.
Mine is not allowed.
This is the cistern where all wars begin,
The laughter from the armoured car.
This is the man who won’t believe you’re what you are.
3
This is your fault.
This is a crusader vault.
The Brook of Kidron flows from Mea She’arim.
I will pray for you.
I will tell you what to do.
I’ll stone you. I shall break your every limb.
Oh, I am not afraid of you,
But maybe I should fear the things you make me do.
4
This is not Golgotha.
This is the Holy Sepulchre,
The Emperor Hadrian’s temple to a love
Which he did not much share.
Golgotha could be anywhere.
Jerusalem itself is on the move.
It leaps and leaps from hill to hill
And as it makes its way it also makes its will.
5
The city was sacked.
Jordan was driven back.
The pious Christians burned the Jews alive.
This is a minaret.
I’m not finished yet.
We’re waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
What was your mother’s real name?
Would it be safe today to go to Bethlehem?
6
This is the Garden Tomb.
No, this is the Garden Tomb.
I’m an Armenian. I am a Copt.
This is Utopia.
I came here from Ethiopia.
This hole is where the flying carpet dropped
The Prophet off to pray one night
And from here one hour later he resumed his flight.
7
Who packed your bag?
I packed my bag.
Where was your uncle’s mother’s sister born?
Have you ever met an Arab?
Yes, I am a scarab.
I am a worm. I am a thing of scorn.
I cry Impure from street to street
And see my degradation in the eyes I meet.
8
I am your enemy.
This is Gethsemane.
The broken graves look to the Temple Mount.
Tell me now, tell me when
When shall we all rise again?
Shall I be first in that great body count?
When shall the tribes be gathered in?
When, tell me, when shall the Last Things begin?
9
You are in error.
This is terror.
This is your banishment. This land is mine.
This is what you earn.
This is the Law of No Return.
This is the sour dough, this the sweet wine.
This is my history, this my race
And this unhappy man threw acid in my face.
10
Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone.
These are the warrior archaeologists.
This is us and that is them.
This is Jerusalem.
These are dying men with tattooed wrists.
Do this and I’ll destroy your home.
I have destroyed your home. You have destroyed my home.

[Hat tip to Mr Thursday-on a Monday! - for the link to these verses.]

Viagra vice quite nice for Nasrallah

Peculiar sources have funded Hizbollah’s war chest, say federal agents in the US, and this reality seems weirder than fiction or bad propaganda . Izzy spotted a piece in today’s International Herald Tribune which casually mentioned that Sheikh Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah’s militants received a cut from sales of phony viagra pills in Canada and America. Odder still, one fellow who pleaded guilty last year to pushing tens of thousands of these blue diamond-shaped pastilles for $10 a pop was a Jewish widower from Miami Beach.

His herbal lookalikes were stamped “Pfizen” instead of the corporate trademark “Pfizer” , and obviously were not scrutinized by older customers with failing eyesight, although the result of a missing ingredient must soon have become apparent. These were placebos, the kind that spammers endlessly advertise in your email.

Theodore Schenk, a 73-year-old widower from Miami Beach who looks after a disabled daughter, had a clean record until arrested for racketeering fake viagra last summer. His lawyer portrayed his client as a hapless dupe “trying to help out an Arabic fellow he was doing legitimate business with." Schenk pleaded guilty last fall. When one of Miami’s snow birds scams alongside an imam at a minor Montreal mosque, amongst others, it reveals that crime makes for strange bedfellows.

A portion of these criminal profits made their way to orphans of suicide bombers in Lebanon, according to a criminal indictment unsealed in a Detroit courtroom, though considerably more was spent on weapons training and ammunition. The formal trial for the gang was scheduled to begin last month. The majority of these 19 suspects lived in Dearborn, an Arab enclave in suburban Detroit. Colin Freeze, of the Globe and Mail newspaper, disclosed that five Canadians also are accused. Profits from fake zig-zag rolling papers and stolen baby formula also contributed to the Hizbollah war chest.

The symbolism of all this might cause some titters. Buying weapons with profits gained on ersatz erection pills would be almost comical, if Katyusha rockets were not so deadly. Iran and Syria may be behind terror sponsorship, but obviously there is stiff competition: big bucks can be had from digging into the deep pockets of America’s erectile dysfunctional and clubbers who want to go all night. Since there is no sign that the Shia militia is flagging in Lebanon, criminals may still be adding to their coffers.