Notre-Dame de la Consolation –
they call the place the Consolation
Up through the town, the faubourg
railway bridge, the fork
and from the houses up
past the olives and
the cork-oak grove
the bridge
(though dry)
The vines and little boxes all the way
white shrines
and withered bunches through the bars
What saints? Saint Anne for one
And up
the path is narrow
to the trees
a hollow with the noble chestnut trees
the hermitage
commercialised? I see a bar
and smell the radical republican
republican the publican
Yoho the key
and ho the key
the long-legg’d child
gives me the key
the long shanked key
and heavy key
and very heavy long old key
Turn and I open, what is here?
No desecration here.
Now good, and unexpected: bless them too:
The alter, candles and an eikon (stranger here)
Saints plain and coloured.
And in boxes Ships
Oh see the ships
the rigging, sails, the waves, the sea
A dark explosion here and bloody wreck
the sailor‘s presents from the doubtful sea.
Above the aisle
a crocodile
a stuffed malignant
crocodile.
But on the pillars, on the whitewashed walls
graffiti.
Low by the floor, up high as hands can reach
no place without a scribbled thing.
What to expect? Names, dates and hearts
the names of towns, obscenity?
the things they write on every goddam wall
in Notre-Dame in Paris and in Pompeii?
For once the worst is wrong, and this one runs
Holy Virgin
make him love me
make the one I love love me
Health in sickness
Health from sickness
freedom from the failing sickness
Freedom for our men, Madonna
Stalag Ten in Würtemburg
The bitter years mount fast between us
Give us back the men we love.