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25 Jun 2025
Roger
Hare
New
Moon
Jerusalem
Syndrome
After Cornelia Parker’s
Jerusalem
To step on those pavements is an act of faith
to take yourself seriously. Get down
on hands and knees and measure yourself
against the city. Pour yourself between
the cracks, harden your understanding
into something you can cast as a more
memorable memento.
Away from these streets, you will mock
your own tears, the removal of sky
from above your head, the emptying
of all you thought required to be filled:
but hold fast, freeze the moment of your
exploding – like any occupied territory,
master the art of concealment.
Behind the poem...
My poem is inspired in part by Cornelia Parker’s Jerusalem. It’s one of her ‘pavement’ works, where she takes a latex cast of the cracks between paving stones then casts them in bronze. I found the one she did in East Jerusalem particularly affecting. Also tying my piece to the place of its ekphrastic origin is a rare psychiatric phenomenon known as Jerusalem syndrome. It’s a form of religious psychosis that’s triggered by visiting Jerusalem. Typically, its effects dissipate a few weeks after leaving – unlike the cast cracks in Parker’s artwork.