... in progress ...
Manual
For Gully Burns and for Alan Hext
The hand that is nowhere, that is the true home.
The Secret of the Golden Flower
Here is a girl with her fists in her eyes and here
another with a thumb in her mouth and here yet another
with head sunk deep in the bowl of her hands
as if they had all been deafened in a catastrophe
stilled and frozen in stone
Their gleaming skins are pearly under the moon
their foreheads have been branded by starlight
or perhaps lashed by the tail of a comet
their tunics are slightly soiled and torn and
their hands will never pick up a comb again
These hands touch things that are not things at all
memories dreams absolutions victories reflections
these hands also repeatedly pick such things up
responsibilities disadvantages obligations loyalties
take them on take them up refuse to let them go
Regardless of disputation dismissal attack and
despite ageing and the gnawings of doubt and pain
these hands are capable of latching and indeed clinging
on stubbornly to certain things that are not things at all
that nevertheless can seem more important than life
These skilled hands descend from hawk-eyed
flint-shapers spear-hurlers and master-archers
who possessed the most accurate and unfaltering aim
the manifold talents of these hands came down also from
the most gifted of cunning and calculating craftswomen
ma tand basket weavers and bone-needle workers
spinners and embroiderers and tapestry workers
collectors and breeders of grasses and tenders of gardens
preparers of dishes and drinks for ceremonies
brewers of analgesics and soporifics
But these hands cannot bring back the dead
who might have had more time
who should not have gone when they did
whose voices keep clamouring
even though they’re dumb
from the mirror the lake the sky
from the coin the city the rose
from the book the photo the portrait
from the other side of everything
let us back in give us another chance
Through these articulate wrists are channelled whispers
from the cool remnant hum of the universe’s beginnings
like very distant drums like bats’ wing-beats
eight carpals five metacarpals fourteen phalanges
eight ghosts five tigers lesser palaces
On these receptive palms stars have coded their densities
and in subcutaneous tissue pencilled cloudy destinies
on these fingers orbiting planets have printed circuits
engraining tips with furrows and ridges like tree-rings
like galaxies spiralling like uncurling fern fronds
Out of wood feathers straw corn clay wax stone
out of sinew horn reed twig shell stem hide
these hands have painted cavewalls modelled gods
hewn coracles shaped triremes engraved cylinders
thatched garments woven roofs plaited bridges
drained swamps stained parchments spanned ravines
lettered cuneiform hieroglyphic rune
revealed taxonomies in monastery gardens
crafted sextants compasses microscopes
launched satellites around planets’ moons
Respected fellows and allies of these hands
have coolly signed death warrants then dined
inspected slaves in quarries mines foundries
designed gaols torture rooms extermination chambers
issued instructions to builders and surveyors
pulled first triggers on victims over ditches
personally slit throats and kicked the dying in
dialled for bulldozers to destroy evidence
played chess poured wine opened their flies washed
then emailed superiors for further instructions
Hands of victims clambered over
heaps of dead and dying companions
to scratch and dig wordless scrabblings
into the concrete of the very ceilings
as they themselves froze contorted
Hands of heroes dug tunnels under electric
perimeter fences surrounding floodlit camps
and before the margin of the treeline tugged
fellows out free to get away at least some
distance a little distance through the snows
and this right hand steadying the same page’s edge
together reach out to your hands that hold and turn
the same copy in another time entirely your own
or click or flick an icon to resurrect its appearance
which curiously means that exceedingly far
across time and space and despite our mortalities
you and I join hands through poetry in a kind
of peace and harmony that is unshakeable and this
is a bond and a pledge and a gift