This poem is the working out of an idea that has been in my notebook for some time.
          In a strange way I think that the initial concept came about as a reaction to the political corruption and chaos in the country here in Spain.  The consideration of the woeful state of honesty in government, banking, business  . . . and the list goes on, made me detail a whole series of physical representations of injustice taking in Dresden, Coventry and Hiroshima.  These names were too big to be contained in any poem of mine and instead I thought about bullet holes that I had seen!
          The three locations I mention in the poem all contain holes made by bullets or projectiles of some sort and although death is an inevitable companion of these pieces of destruction in strictly historical terms, I found that I was able to de-personalise it to a certain extent so that it did not become the main preoccupation of the poem.

Lessons?

The pockmarks in the columns

of the Classical façade of

Dublin’s GPO; brutality that’s

smashed in stone along the walls

that form The Tate; the holes in the

Cathedral roof where Cromwell’s

soldiers fired at gaudiness

in Ely’s beams they could not reach:

these damaged buildings

wear, with pride, the wounds

that now are pointed out

only by chatty guides.

The voices echo from the spaces

gouged in history that

detail man’s destructiveness.

Forget the people.

They’re too vague

to think about

(those men

who made the marks)

and they’re all dead as well –

and probably before their time.

Just let the ruins speak.

And listen to the eloquence
of broken things.

I think that there is a link between this poem and the poems Torture and Again, again, again.  They certainly all stem from a consideration of the concept of loss in some form, and the power of inanimate things to convey some sort of moral sense beyond their mere physicality.

After reading this poem to the Poetry Group in Barcelona I found that the references were not clear to a group that comprised Spanish, Catalan, Californian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish. Moroccan, South American and a few other nationalities!  I like the specific nature of the references, and they are personal, I have seen them all - but I have reworked the poem so that it is, I hope, more inclusive.

I am pleased with the last three lines and I am determined to use 'The eloquence of broken things' as the title for a book!

Anyway, this is the reworked poem.  Do let me know what you think.

Space to listen

Look for the unintended breaks

in buildings; flaws in what

might otherwise appear whole;

forced imperfections that demand

an explanation from the past

to justify the lack of a repair.

The pockmarks in the columns

of the Classical façade of

Dublin’s GPO; brutality that’s

smashed in stone along the walls

that form The Tate; the holes in the

cathedral roof where Cromwell’s

soldiers fired at gaudiness

on Ely’s beams they could not reach:

these damaged buildings

wear, with pride, the wounds

that now are pointed out

only by chatty guides.

What voices echo in the spaces

gouged from history that

detail man’s destructiveness

in every country where

the past still stands and

from the gaps where

it has been expunged?

Forget the people.

They’re too vague

to think about

(those men

who made the marks)

and they’re all dead as well –

and probably before their time.

Just let the ruins speak.

And listen to the eloquence

of broken things.

I have changed the title of the poem as well.  I was never comfortable with a title that is also a question!