A Vietnamese Revolutionary Talks To Jesus

Issue 

A Vietnamese Revolutionary Talks To Jesus

You say you were six hours on the Cross?
— That's true, six hours of sun and dust and sweat.
I am still young, and I have been a score
Of years in battle. I was born upon a battlefield.
You say your mother stood beneath your Cross?
— Yes, my mother and her sister and their friends.
I stooped to see my mother's jellied flesh,
And passed her sparse long hair across my hands.
You say your true friends bore you to your grave?
And placed you there inside with balms and spice?
— They did, it's true.
I wore the balm of phosphorus,
And gas was my incense, and I was shallow-buried
With forty others.
How long the crown of thorns was on your head?
— One night and one day.
So short a torment?
I have worn the coronets of wire and steel
For thirty years, and now they bind my nervous flesh
And how much vinegar was thrust into your mouth?
— A dab upon a pointed spear.
A dab, brother? I have coughed it
By the rusty cup-full
In the torture-rooms at night where men who wear
The Cross you bore, coax life from those like me
Whose arms are pinned, whose mouth is prised,
Whose thin legs cannot flail for dull fatigue.
How long the scourging that the Romans gave?
— Three sessions of thick leather and sharp chunks
Of lead.
Three sessions, brother? My back is worn
From belting all these years, and now
They thrash me on the clotted skin.
Denis Kevans

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