Throngs of believers flown here
walk quietly through the narrow streets
of the old city to deepen the old story

from their eyes and their soles
to their guilty souls
that cannot grasp it

There are even more on the other side
of the world in a colourful field
full of parasols at the holes in the ground

to watch the arrival
of the Roman soldiers
April 14^th, 2017. Jerusalem. Pampanga.

Fifty-five years ago, three days after
my tenth birthday, I walked to the room
just past the Swampstead Road

where a man with nails
through his hands and feet
was hanging skinny on the cross

It was not crowded, slowly
I shuffled along in a thin row
past the real holes

There was nothing to say about it
there was only that old story
and it didn't come any closer

maybe it did for that man
maybe not
because it wasn't his first time