i
The dead press their faces up against mine.
They speak to me endlessly of the past.
Souls clamour as I near the
caterwauling realm of the dead.
I seek my mother, but cannot
find her in this murky-aired vault.
They speak to me. They tell me stories
of their lives. But all I want is to speak with her.
They say, First you must listen to us, you
must hear our grief. Then you are free
to speak with her. The bench is hard. I will
not eat of the food of the dead. This much I
have already learned. The table is filled
with fruit: apples, pomegranate, plums,
grapes, wild roses. Red onions, carrots,
plaited bread and a glass of red wine
are left to tempt me. The storytellers take
their places around the table and begin.
ii
My name is Charlotte. She brushes back her
corn blond hair. My mother, her sister,
my great-grandmother, my great-great uncle,
my great uncle and much later my mother’s mother,
my grandmother all perished by their own hand.
Despair was inherited with the blood of my family.
I was the last. They came and took me away,
took me to the camps, where their final kindness
was to end the family curse. There they gassed me,
along with thousands of others. But they could not kill
my spirit, my life which lives on in the thousands
of paintings I made. The theatre of my life.
iii
My name is Anonymous. I speak for all the other
women whose names are unknown, but whose
stories reverberate around these rooms like
thunderous storms. I am not long dead,
my memories still torment me. I stand in a crowd
of tearful women, waiting and wailing. Willing
that the lives of our fathers, brothers, husbands
be spared, or if they are dead, that they did not die
cruelly. The veil of a woman screams with her expired
breath, seeing the names of those she loves on the list.
Those of us who wait, who return to wait again and again
shiver, wanting and not wanting to know.
I return to my daughters in the camp and resolve to flee
into the Afghani mountains when the list bearing
my beloved’s name is nailed to the gate. My daughters
and I will run between the flying bullets.
iv
I found freedom in the underworld, where circus
jesters, acrobats and long-limbed stilt walkers play
Russian roulette with their souls. I hardly recognise her.
Is that you? Is that really you? I ask, repeating the question.
Fire breathing women walk by, each question punctuated
by a flaring of the mouth. Her soul retreats again
and I reach out to grab her hand. Death is wheeled by
on a cart such as Athena once invented. The underworld
is not technologically literate, but a primitive world
full of primitive passions. Death casts her eye over me
and passes on. Not yet. Not for me, at least. There she
is again. Mum, I call. She turns, her eyes owl-grey,
where once they shone blue. A beach ball flies
between us, light as a ghost. I hold her hand, cold,
and press it to my hairline. Her gaze passes over
my left shoulder and I wonder who she sees. I want
to talk, but no speech can creep between my lips.
When her mouth opens, I see neon words fly like birds
but no sound … I strain to hear but there are only the
faint strains of an accordion, like a circus passing by
on a distant road. She makes the leap as Death cruises
past again and takes her place on the horse-drawn
cart. No backward glance, no regret, simply passing on.
As I turn to leave the world of the dead, my eyes catch
another face I know. No warning and the dead throttle
past me in their rush for eternity.
v
And another and another. Is there no end to the greed
of Death? Crossing the road in her prime, Death
steers straight for her. Didn’t she notice? Did neither
notice? Death did. Death stood by the bed for days.
Pushed and pulled by life’s will. But Death is a bad loser,
knowing that her endurance outlasts all.
I spin the wheel waiting for the next game.
A pomegranate rudely torn open tempts me, a glass
of red wine is proffered. Souls bristle into the seats nearby,
the storytellers take their place around the table and begin …
May 1994-October 1996
Notes
When my mother died in May 1994, I grieved for a long time. This poem references Persephone and Demeter. Persephone in her role as Queen of the Dead, who is tricked by Hades to staying in the underworld for six months of each year.
The poem also tells the story of Charlotte Salomon who was captured by the Nazi’s and sent to Auschwitz. I stumbled upon a book of paintings by her called Leben? Oder Theater? (Life? Or Theater?) while staying with two German friends living in Berkeley. I was very moved, not only by her tragic story, but also by her extraordinary paintings.
This life and all the other lives of women who are unnamed are important to remember, especially around the time of Halloween and All Souls Day.
This poem is from my book The Butterfly Effect (2005).