The Initiation (Papua New Guinea)

Sinuous, impeded current, cargoeing terremote debris,

All the soil sucked from the screes,

Frothing like a sick horse, the river churns downward,

Kicking hillocks dropped from heaven.

Rock-dice spin amid panting vapour,

Ferrous waters oiled with plant decay.

Stumble, stumble through strangling purgatory,

Purblind through thickets, lianas, thorns.

Scratches. Ant-bites. Hunger. Rotting skin.

Bellyaches. Isolation. Fever. Eyes won’t focus.

Paltry bivouacs; leaves clatter; lukewarm rain.

Bottlegreen monotony, falling, bruising.

Cold bone-crack nights of mosquito savagery,

Led astray, disoriented, by a false twinkle,

Drowning in chaos of flagellating branches,

Knotted and noosed nothing straight or true...


Rainblack bark: leeches stretch and lean,

Waving as they wait to fasten.

Cobble-scouring river gushes slower, darker.

Slowly loose-clustered bats flap across pink sky.

A subtle orange sun goes to ground

Behind the village. Naked children, balanced

On slick black branches, launch into the water,

Kicking as they crash; they surface, shrieking

With joy. Tinfoil moisture peels down

Treebrown skin, as they monkey up

Their makeshift divingboards again.


Slimy slugbodied clouds dawdle over

The treetops, where spirit houses hide

In forests enclaves, under the mottled full moon.

Morning miasma. A sprightly canoe

Cuts the channel, sticky new cobwebs

Snapping in the paddlers’ faces,

Damp air sickly with overripe fruit.

Bat-squadrons whud away to somnolent asylums.

Egrets lodged on drift-logs poise their scissor profiles.

The crocodile awakes...initiates sleep with their fear...

The panting river shimmers, mercury near boiling...

Tick-tock: hand-drums, a monster stamping...

In the crocodile’s nest, the threshing floor

Of manhood, beaten, bleeding, mud-shrouded

Sleepwalkers dance...submitted to perfect pain,

The delving knifepoint’s dreamy shock...

Dueting parent flutes lull the little ones to sleep.

Shavenheaded, scarified, they sing out

Their suffering, tortured and mocked

In the hallowed arena, forbidden the privileges

Of men, to please a cruel loving god.