Sea Cross By Elaine Thomas




Guerrilla Camp
(Korea 1952)



We landed at Soc To
on the last of the tide, slipped
the bow high on the beach -

he was waiting for us,
arched back, one hand inside
his tunic, Napoleon-like
as the sun behind him
crept over black hills.

Later, after a goulash breakfast,
an Army captain took us on tour
of the guerrilla camp -

he followed, tagged along
like the Captain's dog -
a lofty Korean. Taut.
Ready to snap like carrot.

Something on his shoulder
I'd like to get my machete into.

We were shown the clattering kitchens,
the sardine-packed barracks
and specially built junks
with their concealed engines

and he watched,
never leaving us
with his eyes. Piercing.

I imagined his eyeballs in my hand
and wondered about his.
I struggled against making a fist
and turning off his light,
but it wouldn't have been
a blind bit of use, imaginings
were just imaginings.

Through the hospital, I saw four
sheet-covered bodies from the raid
the night before; I spoke to the wounded
and lashed out cigarettes

until he strode up,
stuck his shattered hand in my face,
anger, hatred, blazing in his eyes
and shouted, shouted

waving that hand,
the bones crumpled by a sniper's slug,
hardened into a glistening knot.

The Captain translated -
"How could a man farm with a hand
like that, when the land
is his again."



Baghdad



I awake in the back seat. People are stirring.
I remember a landscape of black stones,
an unpromised land of no provender but basalt
and jinns of black dust whirling to the horizon.
Yet the bus that has brought us across
the desert of Badiet esh Sham
has arrived at a motorway system, yellow
glow of street-lights lead us to an urban area.
Now there are cars and a few pedestrians.
We've reached the terminus,
my ticket will not take me further.
Holding the Sony DV cam in its athletics bag
like an infant close to my chest,
I alight into the crowd.
My luggage seized by a cab driver,
I'm hustled into an 'orange and white'
and sped to my hotel,
get there before passing out
under noxious fumes - testaments
to DIY mechanics.
Dealing dollars for dinars with the driver
buys me a bundle, as bulky as a sack
of basmati I'd admired in Zarqa.
Wads of grey 250 dinar notes,
like pages from a burnt book.
It's 6 a.m. time for sleep, but first
I watch the sky go pale over the Tigris.
Sharp-prowed boats appear through the haze.
Slowly the light starts to dazzle the blue
and gold faience work of the minarets,
and soon the sky is white above the nitrous
cocoon in which the city lives.



- Esmond Jones 2000