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Home>>Poetry>>Poetry Collections>>Angels over Elsinore

Statement from the Secretary of Defense

Picture
This one we didn't know we didn't know:
At least, I didn't. You, you might have known
You didn't know. Let's say that might be so.
You knew, with wisdom granted you alone,

You didn't know. You say, but don't say how,
You knew we didn't know about abuse
Or lack of it in their gaols we run now.
Well, now we all know. I make no excuse:

In fact it's far worse than you think. You thought
You knew how bad it was? If you could see
The photos in this classified report
You'd know you knew, as usual, less than me.

You want to see a stress position? Look
At how I crouch to meet the President
And tell him this has not gone by the book.
How do I know he won't know what I meant?

I just know what he'll say, with hanging head:
"They don't know what pain is, these foreign folks.
Pain is to know you don't know what gets said
Behind your back, except you know the jokes."

I feel for that man in his time of trial.
He simply didn't know, but now he knows
He didn't, and it hurts. Yet he can smile.
Remember how that Arab saying goes --
The blow that doesn't break you makes you strong?
They'll thank us when they get up off the mat.
They didn't know we knew what they knew. Wrong.
Even our women can do stuff like that.

Fair-weather friends who called our cause so good
Not even we could screw it, but now say
We've managed the impossible — I've stood
All I can stand of petty spite today,

So leave no room for doubt: now that we know
We might have known we didn't know, let's keep
Our heads. Give history time, and time will show
How flags wash clean, and eagles cease to weep.

​(Spectator, May 22, 2004)

Poems

  • Meteor IV at Cowes
  • Overview
  • We Being Ghosts
  • Ghost Train to Australia
  • Yusra
  • Status Quo Vadis
  • Tramps and Bowlers
  • The Nymph Calypso
  • Angels Over Elsinore
  • Double or Quits
  • Natural Selection
  • Dreams Before Sleeping
  • Naomi from Namibia
  • Fires Burning, Fires Burning
  • Return of the Lost City
  • Portrait of Man Writing
  • Museum of the Unmoving Image​
  • A Gyre from Brother Jack
  • A City with Green Fingers
  • Diamond Pens of the Bus Vandals
  • When We Were Kids
  • Mystery of the Silver Chair
  • Private Prayer at Yasukuni Shrine
  • Sonnet After Wyatt
  • Paddington Departures
  • Les Saw It First
  • The Genesis Wafers
  • Literary Lunch
  • Exit Don Giovanni
  • At Ian Hamilton's Funeral
  • Press Release from Plato
  • You, Mark Antony
  • Lock Me Away
  • Young Lady Going to Dakar
  • State Funeral
  • Publisher's Party
  • The Zero Pilot
  • Iron Horse
  • Statement from the Secretary of Defense
  • Only Divine
  • My Father Before Me
  • The Magic Wheel
  • The Serpent Beguiled Me
  • Woman Resting
  • The Australian Suicide Bomber's Heavenly Reward
  • Windows Is Shutting Down
  • Anniversary Serenade
  • Belated Homage to Derek Walcott





Reviews of Angels over Elsinore

Independent
Prospect
Telegraph
Peter Stothard
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  • Home
    • Archive
  • Author
    • Profiles >
      • The Texture of Reality
  • Books
    • The Fire Of Joy
    • Unreliable Memoirs
    • Falling Towards England
    • May Week Was In June
    • North Face of Soho
    • The Blaze of Obscurity
    • Latest Readings
    • Cultural Amnesia
    • Play All
    • A Point Of View
    • Flying Visits
  • Essays
    • Visions Before Midnight
    • The Crystal Bucket
    • Glued To The Box
    • The Metropolitan Critic
    • At the Pillars of Hercules
    • As of This Writing
    • The Meaning of Recognition >
      • Introduction
      • Polanski and the Pianist
      • Fantasy in the West Wing
      • Pushkin's Deadly Gift
      • Great Sopranos of Our Time
      • A Memory Called Malouf
      • Bing Crosby's Hidden Art
      • Larkin Treads the Boards
      • The Iron Capital of Bruno Schulz
      • Criticism a la Frank Kermode
      • Fast Talking Dames
      • Rough Guides to Shakespeare
      • General Election Sequence 2001
      • Primo Levi and the Painted Veil
      • A Big Boutique of Australian Essays
      • Cyrano on the Scaffold
      • A Nightclub in Bali
      • Aldous Huxley Then and Now
      • A Man Called Peter Porter
      • Philip Roth's Alternative America
      • The Miraculous Vineyard of Australian Poetry
      • Save Us From Celebrity
    • The Revolt of the Pendulum >
      • The Question of Karl Kraus
      • John Bayley's Daily Bread
      • Kingsley and the Women
      • Canetti Man of Mystery
      • Camille Paglia Burns for Poetry
      • The Guidebook Detectives
      • Zuckerman Uncorked
      • The Flight from the Destroyer
      • Saying Famous Things
      • Insult to the Language
      • The Perfectly Bad Sentence
      • Happiness Writes White
      • All Stalkers Kill
      • Best Eaten Cold
      • White Shorts of Leni Reifenstahl
      • Made in Britain, More or Less
      • Movie Criticism in America
      • Show Me the Horror
      • The Measure of A.D. Hope
      • Robert Hughes Remembers
      • Modern Australian Painting
      • On Diamond Jim McClelland
      • The Voice of John Anderson
      • Niki Lauda Wins Going Slowly
      • Damon Hill's Bravest Day
      • Jonathan James-Moore
      • Ian Adam
      • Pat Kavanagh
      • Starting with Sludge
    • Guest Writers >
      • Zoe Williams
      • Russell Davies
      • Bryan Appleyard
      • Marina Hyde
      • Bruce Beresford
      • Michael Frayn
  • Poetry
    • Poetry Collections >
      • Injury Time
      • Sentenced to Life >
        • Japanese Maple
        • Sentenced to Life
        • Procedure for Disposal
        • Leçons des ténèbres
        • Driftwood Houses
        • Event Horizon
        • Neuland
        • Echo Point
        • Change of Domicile
        • Holding Court
        • Too Much Light
        • Nature Programme
        • My Latest Fever
        • Nina Kogan's Geometrical Heaven
        • The Emperor's Last Words
        • Winter Plums
      • Nefertiti in the Flak Tower >
        • Whitman and the Moth
        • The Falcon Growing Old
      • Angels over Elsinore
      • The Book of My Enemy >
        • Recent Verse
        • Verse Letters
      • Opal Sunset
      • Other Passports >
        • Recent Verse >
          • The Book of My Enemy has been Remaindered
        • Parodies etc.
        • Earlier Verse
        • Verse Diaries
      • Fan Mail >
        • To Russell Davies: a letter from Cardiff
        • To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis
        • To Pete Atkin: a letter from Paris
        • To Prue Shaw: a letter from Cambridge
        • To Tom Stoppard: a letter from London
        • To Peter Porter: a letter to Sydney
    • Epic Poems >
      • The River in the Sky
      • Gate of Lilacs
      • The Divine Comedy >
        • Hell - Cantos 1-3
        • Purgatory - Cantos 1-3
        • Heaven - Cantos 1-3
      • Poem of the Year
    • Books About Poetry >
      • Somewhere Becoming Rain
      • Poetry Notebook >
        • Listening for the Flavour
        • Five Favourite Poetry Books
        • Velvet Shackles
        • Meeting MacNiece
        • The Donaghy Negotiation
    • Poetry Readings
    • Articles on Poetry
    • Back from The Web
    • Guest Poets >
      • Daniel Brown
      • Liane Strauss
      • Les Murray
      • Peter Porter
      • Alan Jenkins
      • Stephen Edgar
      • John Stammers
      • Simon Barraclough
      • Isobel Dixon
      • Christian Wiman
      • Olivia Cole
      • Judith Beveridge
      • Peter Goldsworthy
      • Kapka Kassabova
  • Lyrics
    • My life in lyrics
    • Selected Song Lyrics >
      • Dancing Master
      • Faded Mansion
      • Have You got a Biro I can Borrow?
      • I Have to Learn to Live Alone Again
      • Hill of Little Shoes
      • History & Geography
      • I See the Joker
      • Laughing Boy
      • My Brother's Keeper
      • National Steel
      • Nothing Left to Say
      • Sessionman's Blues
      • Song for Rita
      • Stranger in Town
      • Sunlight Gate
      • The Egoist
      • The Eye of the Universe
      • The Ice Cream Man
      • Femme Fatale
      • The Master of the Revels
      • Thirty-year Man
      • Winter Spring
  • Video
    • Talking in the Library >
      • Series One
      • Series Two
      • Series Three
      • Series Four
      • Series Five
    • Postcards
    • CJ on YouTube
  • Radio
    • A Point Of View
    • Book Talk