The Evidence (Pendle, 1612)
written for the exhibition ‘The Tower’ by Jude Cowan Montague and Miyuki Kasahara at St John on Bethnal Green, May 2014.
Her eyes are sunk in her head.
God preserve all Christian men.
Her eyes are flecked with the forest.
God bless us, Christe Amen.
Four women with murder in their hands
drew me by the hair,
flung me on top of a hay-mow
and violated me there.
Her ears hear devil-breath.
God preserve all Christian men.
Her clothes reek simply of death.
God bless us, Christe Amen.
She tumbled over a style and fell,
she wasn’t in pain when she rose.
They threw a child from the top of a house;
he didn’t hurt one little toe.
Her teeth chatter and fright.
God preserve all Christian men.
Her tongue flicks like snakes of the night.
God bless us, Christe Amen.
In black jagged nightwind the women cavorted,
twisting and turning at speed.
Not men, not beasts, the watchers agreed
the shapes were other than these.
Her hair breaks brittle as hay.
God preserve all Christian men.
Her chin sprouts stiff and grey.
God bless us, Christe Amen.
She took a child out of bed
to suck the blood from the navel
by striking its tum with a nail,
applying the law of the devil.
Her skirts lift, riddled with vermin.
God preserve all Christian men.
Her walk is the walk of the guilty.
God bless us, Christe Amen.
Her eyes are sunk in her head.
God preserve all women an men.
Her eyes are the eyes of the dead.
God bless us, Christe Amen.
Jude Cowan Montague is an archivist who works on the Reuters Television Archive. She is an award-winning printmaker and often writes about current international news stories. She curates a hybrid news-arts show on Resonance 104.4FM, The News Agents. She is the author of two published collections of poetry, For the Messengers (Donut, 2011) and The Groodoyals of Terre Rouge (Dark Windows, 2013) www.judecowan.net