Penance

I

The important thing to grasp about being a judge
is it doesn’t matter who’s innocent or guilty –
what counts is fear, and the politics of being
seen to be in charge, particularly here

when if you hint at a willingness to fudge
they’re onto it at once, and say your loyalty
to the Emperor’s in question. While what they mean
by ‘law’ is something else...  And yet I care

more for their stiff-necked ways than I like to admit,
and they spin a good yarn about their Great Escape
from Egypt. So no doubt they hope our stay

is another short blip they’ll survive, but Romans don’t quit
either. Anyway, for now they’ve gone to gape
at the fool it made no sense to save today.

II

He frowned as though at shoddy craftsmanship . . .
Well, I’d heard he’d been a carpenter before
he went on his career break walkabout.
A Friday afternoon job? – though I suppose

it wasn’t meant to last. There was an intake of breath
as he picked it up, and then a sudden roar
when he took his first step. There’d been a news blackout
during the trial – the gossip was that those

who’d come with him to Jerusalem had fled
the moment he was in trouble, that he hadn’t tried
to defend himself when the Prefect asked him why

he should waste time trying to spare him. What was in his head?
Disappointment there was nobody on his side
when it mattered? When we all cried crucify!

III

I think he stumbled on a cobblestone.
The sweat was pouring from his face by then,
and with the blood he wasn’t a pretty sight.
But then, he’d only got himself to blame –

insisting he’d sit on some supernatural throne
when we’d be the ones in the dock...  Well, amen
to all that, and to those who fake the right
to preach fire and brimstone at this world’s endgame.

As far as I can see, this life’s all there is:
nothing before, and nothing afterwards,
and only luck dictating if you’re born

in a hovel, to shepherds, or to some ghastly showbiz
celebs clambering socially upwards;
or to a king, wearing his crown with scorn.

IV

This is what we’re always expected to do –
watch, and support them while they make their way
on the path they choose, and when it all goes wrong.
I’m tired of the role. But here I am, while he

struggles to cling to what he thought he knew
about his mission. And we both know I’ll play
the part I must, pretending to be strong,
before going back, alone, to Galilee.

It makes me angry when I think how men
decide on the rules, while we cook and sew, and wait.
Who is my mother? he asked. But oh my son

I’d live it all over and over again,
and I’d take your place to bear that cross’ weight,
and to be nailed to it, if I could be the one.

V

It wasn’t what I’d trudged from Cyrene to do.
Did my accent mean I stood out from the crowd?
His escort pushed. Before I twigged it I’d
made a clown of myself by offering to carry

the heavy wood to the hillside where, on cue,
he had even worse in store. And I’m not proud
about what I did. His hangers-on are wide
of the mark when they talk it up. Though of course I worry –

they should drop the subject, before anyone thinks
I’m one of them, given the ugly mood
on the street at the moment. In spite of that, I guess

there was a plus of sorts. When I’d had a few drinks
there was still this weirdo, deep-down gratitude:
that when I asked if he needed me, the man said yes.

VI

I couldn’t say whether there was a likeness –
they snatched it from me as soon as he gave it back
announcing – days later – there’d been a miracle.
Maybe. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Someone knows someone who works in the Governor’s Palace
who’s putting it round Pilate’s now an insomniac.
It’s amazing how quickly rumour becomes gospel
till you don’t know what to believe. They even say

they saw him, or his ghost, out walking both
at Emmaus and by the Kinneret
when they’d gone fishing. But I’d like to hope

that when he wiped his face on my white cloth
with a weariness I doubt I shall forget
it helped him – if only then and there – to cope.

VII

What if the mob are starting to feel sorry for him?
It might have been better to hang him in the night
then say it was suicide. I know the idea
was to make an example of him, but it takes so long –

there’s always a risk they’ll see him as a victim.
They might turn this roadshow into a grisly rite!
There he goes falling again. Is it mad to fear
we’ll have a price to pay, though we’ve done nothing wrong?

What people can accept a rebel who
breaks all the rules which mean they have survived
exile and persecution? Which give their history

its shape and meaning? Who represents a coup
against what’s kept our hearts and souls alive?
But we’ve never been good at putting our side of the story.

VIII

When we talked about it, we were all confused –
why was he so hard on us? We’d hoped he’d feel
less lonely as he stumbled to his end,
instead of which, he just dismissed our tears,

rebuffing us as though we were the ones accused
and sooner or later would face our own ordeal.
You’d have thought that he’d be desperate for a friend
while others spat, and kicked at him, and jeered.

And yet, years later, I think I understand
the sorrow at the heart of things his death
now seems to represent, and why he spoke

as harshly as he did to those whose bland
piety was just a waste of breath,
a sentimental interlude, a joke.

IX

I didn’t betray him – he betrayed us all,
pumping our hopes up, letting us down with a bang.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer
and the Romans will rule the roost till kingdom come.

It’s another case of pride before a fall –
and there he goes again, he can’t get the hang
of wedging the crossbar between his neck and shoulder.
Why should I care? He hasn’t removed one slum,

or cut the cost of living, or freed one slave,
or booted out the occupiers – no,
we’ll be well rid of him. But you know what irks? –

the self-righteous way he said that he forgave
me, when I slipped away from the meal to go
to meet those who recognise how this world works.

X

If we hadn't already rumbled he's merely human
we sure do now he's down to just his skin.
If that’s what Gods look like, God help us . . . Still,
I wish they’d get a move on. Isn’t it shameful –

the thrill we get watching a fellow man
undergo such appalling suffering?
We’re in the zone, impatient for the kill,
persuading ourselves it’s ok, since it’s lawful . . .

But the moment you start to imagine it was you
they’re stretching out to hammer in a nail
it’s something else, although we cannot share

the despair he must be – surely – going through
as they raise the cross and the mocking soldiers hail
his body slumping in the evening air.

XI

It was just my job: I’d done it a hundred times.
There was nothing special about him, except perhaps
the fuss they made soon afterwards, claiming
the stiff had upped and strolled out of the tomb.

It’s not for me to bother what kind of crime
meant the bored troops dawdled over a game of craps
for the little he had, or why the sign said ‘King’.
I packed my kit and went back to the room

on the other side of town which I’ve rented from
a fat cat from the north who in his youth
thought he must have met the guy. He shrugged and said

it was easier to deal with terrorists trying to storm
the City than with nutters pushing ‘Truth’ –
that things would calm down now that he was dead.

XII

You could feel the disappointment when it was over.
Not that anyone believed he’d jump back down
and prove he’d been all his fan club said he was,
but you couldn’t help wishing for something more dramatic

whether or not you were one of his followers.
The two crooks lasted longer, their cries drowned
by a burst of idle chatter, the slain man’s cause
already forgotten – another country hick

with a vision too big for his head. So what makes me
stand here as the throng thins out, and watch the sun
go down on just another day? And yearn

for a change I can’t define, however slowly
it might unfold? And to sense that I’ve begun
a prayer it will take the rest of my life to learn?

XIII

Pilate seemed amazed that anyone cared
but when his troops had checked he gave a nod
and went back to his wife. That’s all I needed.
It was hard work all the same. Dead bodies weigh

more than you reckon, and our small group was scared –
expecting trouble from the awkward squad.
But there was no one around. We wrapped his naked
corpse in a crisp, clean shroud, and took it away

to the silence I’d intended as my own.
One image comes back, from that sleepless night –
how his mother held him lying across her knee

and rocked him as though they were safely back at home
and he was still a child, and the future might
be other than it could only ever be.

XIV

So is this where his CV will be sealed?
I can’t connect what’s happening to the past
and the happy tumult of those early days
when the masses would trek for miles to hear him speak

at first just hoping he had the power to heal
their damaged minds and bodies, but at last
acknowledging the hundred subtle ways
he knew what else we’d come to him to seek.

Leaders are all very well till it comes the grave.
Then what’s the message? But I’m not here to complain
that maybe he pulled the wool over our eyes,

or to honour him as generous or brave,
or to dream of another world where he might yet reign:
but to share this hour with him, as all hopes dies.

Tom Vaughan

If you have any comments on this sequence of poems, Tom Vaughan  would be pleased to hear from you.