by Philip Terry
Putting it simply, things used to be arranged
Round the five squares and the points of the compass,
But as the campus expanded, this system
Became rapidly obsolete. Besides, it was
Never very helpful –
Students could rarely find their way to class.
In fact, there’s a rumour that a student
From the 1960s is still walking about somewhere,
Looking for the Lecture Theatre Block.
The new layout (which in reality
Coexists alongside the old one,
Like the imperial and metric systems)
Is simpler: the campus is divided into Zones,
1–9, and each Zone into Areas, A–Z.
This system has the advantage of allowing
For almost infinite expansion,
And it’s useful in case of fire drills and the like,
Which round here are pretty common, as you can imagine.’
Berrigan stopped for a moment, to lick the joint,
And I took the opportunity to ask
About the souls who were confined below.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘Martin Luther King put it well
When he said, “Those who assert that evil means
Can lead to good ends are deceiving themselves.”
All malice has injustice as its end,
And this is achieved by violence or by fraud;
As fraud belongs exclusively to humanity
It is all the more despicable.
In the first Zone below, Zone 7,
You’ll find the violent, but since there are different
Kinds of violence, it’s divided into
Three Areas: 7A contains
Homicides, 7B suicides and
Squanderers, 7C the blasphemers
And usurers, amongst others.
Beyond that, in Zones 8 and 9, as you’ll
See, things get worse: down there you’ll find all
Sorts of fraud of the worst kind: hypocrites,
Of which there’s no shortage amongst academics,
Those who waste their time making crazy predictions,
Cheats and thieves, moneygrubbers, grafters
And like filth.’ ‘Master,’ I said, ‘I’m beginning
To get the picture, but tell me, what about
The souls we passed earlier on, those
Swept by the winds and lashed by the hoses,
Those stuck in the muddy swamp, why aren’t they
Too shut inside the burning gates?’
‘Didn’t they teach you anything at that
Grammar school of yours? You mean you haven’t
Read the Nicomachean Ethics? Where do I
Begin? Aristotle distinguishes between
Three kinds of wrong: to put it crudely,
He calls them incontinence, malice, and
Bestiality. Incontinence, he argues,
Is the least of the three evils, and if
You think back to the kind of shades we met
Early on in our journey, you’ll see why they
Suffer less. Are you with me?’ ‘I was never
Too hot at classics,’ I said, ‘I once got
2% in a Latin exam, but I get your drift.
Tell me, though, what’s the problem with usury?
Surely we need people to lend us money,
Otherwise how would you buy a house, for example?’
‘Mortgages,’ said Berrigan, ‘are a con,
It’s just another form of robbery.
This was one thing old Ez got right,
Even if he got it wrong about the Jews
And the fascists – read canto XLV
Where he puts it plainly:
“with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom…”
Now, speaking of stone, it’s about time
We picked ourselves up again, and had
A closer look at this landfall,
We need to think about making our way down.’
CANTO XII
The point we came to, to make our
Descent, not far from Reception,
was steep and treacherous.
As, at Aberfan, when
the mountainous slag heap
Collapsed
burying the town,
Slurry, mud and concrete
littered our track,
And guarding the way was that monstrous
Bigot, John Bull, in his
top hat and braces,
A bunch of skinheads
with Nazi tats
at his side.
When he saw us approaching
He tucked his thumbs behind his braces,
whispering something to his friends.
Berrigan, my guide, lit the spliff,
and as we drew near,
he held it out to the skins.
‘Fancy a smoke, boys?’ he asked,
And at once one of their number
reached out a hand to snatch it.
They sat down amongst the rocks to smoke,
As John Bull stood there, fuming with rage.
‘Quick,’ my shrewd guide called out, ‘let’s go,
Before things turn nasty.’ And so we went down,
over the scree
which I felt shift and tilt
Beneath my feet
with the human weight
it was not used to.
I was in deep thought when Berrigan began:
‘Are you wondering what made the podium
collapse, making this heap of rubble,
Down which we clamber? Last time
I was here, as visiting professor,
it still stood firm.
Yet, if I remember well, that was just before
The helicopter, carrying scouts from Vanderbilt, came,
to cream off any talent they could find,
Then this abyss of stench began to quake,
From top to bottom, that was the moment the
Concrete began to split – here, and in other places.
But now, look out across the marshes,
Towards B&Q, coming closer you will see
the river of blood that boils the souls
Of those who injured others through violence.’
I saw a river – wide, bent like the pin of
a grenade – embracing the bleak flatlands,
Across which came an
army of cleaners, trotting in single file,
armed with mops and buckets.
Catching sight of us, they stopped short
And three of them approached: ‘You there,
On your way to the river like a couple of rats,
What torture are you looking for? Speak,
Or I’ll give you a taste of my mop.’
And then Berrigan called back:
‘We’ll give our answer to Sharon, when we’re
At her side; as for you, I see you’re
surly as ever!’
He nudged me, whispering: ‘That one there is
Trevor, a right bastard, who went down for
GBH before he landed a job here.
The middle one, with the tits,
is Sharon an ex-student, who did a
PhD on Achilles and homoeroticism.
The last is Jock, an ex-para who
Fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday,
known for his short temper.’
When we got closer to the bunch,
Sharon took out her vanity case,
And began to powder her nose,
Then she opened h
er cavernous mouth and spoke
To Trev and Jock: ‘Have you noticed how
The one behind moves what he touches?
This is not what dead men’s feet would do.’
And Berrigan replied: ‘You’re right,
he is no dead man,
He travels along this dismal estuary
by necessity, not pleasure,
To see how the dead live.
Now, give us a guide for God’s sake,
One who knows the area,
To lead us safely along the river,
I want to show this one the souls
Who suffer.’ Sharon looked over her
right breast and said to Trevor:
‘You go, Trev, guide them as they ask, and
If the boss grumbles, I’ll tell him where to go.’
And so we moved off, along the stinking
River’s bank, where piercing shrieks rose
From the boiling sewer. There I saw
People sunk to their eyelids,
As the surly cleaner explained:
‘These are tyrants who dealt in blood,
With hot tears they pay for their crimes.
Here stand Sidney and the unmoveable Trevelyan,
Who weighed down Ireland with years of pain,
And there, that forehead smeared with coal-black hair,
Is Bernadette Devlin; the other one,
The blonde, is Myra Hindley.’
I looked up at Berrigan, but he said:
‘Let him instruct you now, don’t look to me.’
A little farther on, the cleaner stopped
above some souls peering from the blood,
Which here reached to their throats.
He pointed out a shade off to one side,
Alone and said:
‘That one, if I’m not mistaken, is Sam Cooke,
Who took a Catholic girl back to his room
To strangle her, cutting her
Throat before he dumped the body on
Waste ground.’ Then I saw other souls,
Their heads and chests above the blood,
And I knew the faces of many who were there.
Then the river’s blood began decreasing, till
It cooked the toes and nothing more,
And here was a signed footpath, which we could follow
At ease. ‘Just as the river gets shallower on this
Side,’ said the surly cleaner,
‘On the other side it gets deeper,
Till it reaches the spot where tyrants moan.
There you will find Raleigh and Essex,
And, sunk deepest of all,
William of Orange,
Whose battlefields were highways of blood.’
Then he turned back, and retraced his steps.
CANTO XIII
Trevor had not yet reached the bridge by B&Q
When we found ourselves entering a wood
Marked by a narrow dirt track.
The leaves were not green, but black,
Nor were the branches straight
but gnarled and twisted,
And each tree bore a laminated white label,
Grown illegible through wear,
And wilted flowers at the base of the trunk.
No holts so rough or dense have those wild fowl,
That flee all cultivated tracts,
Between Mersea Island and Maldon.
Here the Essex Harpies twine their nests,
Whose namesakes chased the Trojans
From the Strophades, with prophecies of doom,
A mutant breed, sired at Bradwell,
Where the reactor leaks its waste
Into the Blackwater.
Wide wings they have, necks and faces of women,
Their feet are clawed like the falcon,
Their fat bellies feathered.
Raising his voice to drown out their piercing shrieks
Berrigan said: ‘Look closely about you
And you will see with your own eyes
What I won’t waste time describing, for if I did,
You wouldn’t credit it.’ Already I heard wailing
From every side, but could see nobody there.
I reckon Berrigan thought I was imagining
That the voices echoing around those stumps
Came from people who hid themselves on our account,
For he said: ‘Reach out, and break off
A branch from one of these trees,
Then what you’re thinking now will break off too.’
I stretched my hand a little into the air
And snapped off a branch from a thorn tree;
The trunk cried out: ‘What the fuck?’
And when the wound had grown dark with blood
It again began to cry: ‘Why are you roughing me up?
What the fuck have I done to you?
If I was still a man, I’d take you both on,
But even if I was the soul of a shit,
You could show me a wee bit of respect.
We were students once, now we are turned to wood,
Not because we were thick, mind you,
Now show a little pity, for Christ’s sake!’
As a green log, burning at one end,
Hisses and oozes sap from the other,
So from that splintered trunk
Words and blood poured forth at once;
I let the branch drop from my fingers
And stood as one petrified by fear.
‘Lighten up,’ said Berrigan, ‘it’s only a scratch.
If my companion here had read his Virgil
More carefully, and credited what’s written there,
He would not have reached out his hand against you,
But the incredibility of the thing
Made me egg him on.
But tell him who you were; to make up he can
Carry your story back to the world above,
Where his return is sure.’
‘Seeing as you’re asking,
I was a border at Colchester Grammar,
Known for my attitude
And my way with the women.
I was never happier than at a party,
A drink in one hand and a fag in the other.
Later, my love for the booze
led me on to harder drugs
till I ended up on smack,
Drifting into a life of squatting
And petty theft with some old schoolmates.
Eventually, determined
To turn things round, I came here to study,
But soon fell into debt. I hadnae any choice
But to start dealing to pay it off.
And it wasnae long before the Dean here
Got wind of it, inflaming the hearts of
Everyone against me,
Till my attempt to gain honours turned to tears.
I could brook it no longer, so one day
I just took an overdose, and that was me done.’
Berrigan listened, then said to me:
‘Seeing as he’s silent now
ask him if there’s more you wish to know.’
‘No, please, Ted,’ I said, ‘you question him.
I can’t, pity so chokes me.’
Then Berrigan turned once more towards the shade,
Asking: ‘So we might better understand your state,
Tell us how a soul
gets bound in these knots.’
Then the trunk blew strongly, and soon that wind
Formed into words: ‘What you ask is easy
To answer. I shall be brief.
When the angry spirit quits the body
From which it has torn itself,
Todd Landman, Professor of Government,
Judges it, then kicks it out.
It falls into the wood, and wherever it falls,
There it sprouts, like grain of spelt;
There’s a brief ceremony, where they give you
A label and a number, and sometimes
A mourner passes with some flowers.
The grain grows into a sapling, then a tree;
At last, the Harpies come, then feeding
On the leaves, give pain, and to pain a way out.’
We stood there all ears, listening to the trunk,
Thinking it would tell us more, when we
Were surprised by a sudden noise,
Like that a hunter hears
As the pack closes in for the kill,
beast and branches crashing;
Then to the left of where we stood
appeared two shapes, part human part fox,
their faces those of Cameron and Clegg,
Fleeing with such haste
That they tore away with them the branches.
‘Let me fess up,’ said the first, seeing us standing there,
‘I was never in favour of lifting the ban.’
Then to the other, who couldn’t keep up, he yelled:
‘I’ve never seen you change direction so quickly
Since you changed your mind over tuition fees!’
And then, through shame, Clegg
Slipped into a bush and hid amongst the thorns.
