Steve Williams

A Hunger

Mahatma Mohandas Ghandi
I am the mother flute, this bamboo tube
of a body, these music holes. But crowds swallow
the melody and I am cold. Dear girl, ah, your face,
Come to sleep with your mother, still your cough
in our naked heat. I shuck my lust, untie
my day, crawl up to the skin of God, unbroken.

Bobby Sands I
We are the undead ghosts, the martyred ice of Belfast.
We are a mattress of maggots under a body of guards.
We are bloated flies pierced by the bayonets of swallows.
We are snow soft through iron bars onto shit-smeared feet.
We are British thumbs peering up our own anus.
We are ragged blankets made of bruised blood.

Thomas Ashe
It is the fifth day. My leg is broken
as guards walk me to the doctor. Tubes
are crammed through my nose. I am tied
on a gurney, stare up. The choice is swallow
in order to breathe or die. I inhale liquid, cough
and spit British bile on plump eyes and faces.

Bobby Sands II
We are British thumbs made of bruised blood.
We are soft snow, the martyred ice of Belfast.
We are ragged blankets peering up our own anus.
We are a mattress of maggots under a body of guards.
We are undead ghosts through iron bars onto shit-smeared feet.
We are bloated flies skewered by the bayonets of swallows.

Lucy Burns
Occoquan guards rage against my anorexic face.
Dora appears dead. Her head is broken
against an iron bed. Alice shakes through gasping coughs,
dies of a heart attack. My hands chained high to iron tubes,
I ask where is mother? I hack and swallow
each choke, twist, and kick ‘till dawn when we’re untied.

B. Sands III
Are we a mattress of maggots skewered by the starvation of swallows?
Are we soft snow through iron bars of bruised blood?
Are we ragged blankets over shit-smeared feet?
Are we the British thumbs, the martyred ice of Belfast?
Are we bloated flies under a body of guards?
Are we undead ghosts peering up our own anus?

Terrence MacSwiney
Young Ho Chi Minh packs scraps for the poor, unties
his apron, reads the London Times. His face
tightens as he shudders, sips his tea, swallows
revolution, “nations of these men will stay unbroken.”
He crushes the rolled paper like frosting tubes,
like consumption chokes the next hungry mother’s cough.

Sands IV
We are British thumbs skewering our own anus.
We are undead ghosts, the starvation of swallows.
We are a mattress of maggots eating a body of guards.
We are ragged blankets woven of bruised blood.
We are bloated flies, the martyred ice of Belfast.
We are snow soft through iron bars onto shit-smeared feet.

Akbar Ganji
Fatwas are locusts in my mouth. I can’t cough
them out fast enough. They swarm, tie
my tongue to my teeth. Crude seeps from tubes
of their severed legs. Saw-tooth tracks on my face
scratch my eyelids shut, but I still see, pluck them, break
them, bleed them, yet I cannot find a swallow.

B.S. V
We are snow soft through iron bones into shit feet.
Are we British thumbs fucking our own anus?
We are a mattress of maggots, the martyred ice of Belfast.
We are bloated flies caught by the barbed hooks of swallows.
Are we blankets of Gaelic speaking of bruised blood?
We are the undead wives eating a body of guards.

Mrs. Burns
Lucy your flitting about like a scarlet swallow
has ended. You must submit to your father, cough
up your outrage and spit into the broken
weeds of childhood. Here are your eggs, here your uterus, tied
to their vanity. You must eat, be pregnant, don’t face
your husband. Here are your glittering tubes.

VI
We are body guards.
We are iron feet.
We are Gaelic blood.
We are up our anus.
We are barbed swallows.
We are undead Belfast.


Dr. D.
The counselor breaks through her patter, “no, it’s easy to swallow
your own death. No I.V. tubes, food, drink or salt.” She coughs.
“Wait seven days, tie up your life – Ketones will eat at your face.”

Hunger in Belfast is two feet
of charcoal snow. Six guards, one anus,
a lit cigarette swallowed. Peace blood.