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Click hereRED HANDS 73XXXX/OTT
By JC STREET © 2004 all rights reserved
Cold the tunnels of night
creeping to Belfast
stark-set
pale shade of moon-
flecked lough
thousand year cradle for sentries
the CS canister has replaced
the Roman breastplate
They still find Roman
coins on Cave Hill lying
rain-battered
next to British shillings
This is the limit of their story, their
tarnished hue
brackets the land’s destiny, this
pale wild country no-one
ever called home
a port in a storm, a passing
night of wandering strangers . . .
nobody’s destination
II.
Outside Dublin the Wicklow Hills the
night comes down so thick and fat it soul-crushes
a brooding fog of terror no man
can fathom it
Fifty yards beyond the last
house-light the maw
opens like a Hell-gate
Do not be caught there without a friend
it is a strange
pit of demons when day
passes each daybreak
uncertain
no one knows it will come.
My grandmother said a curse was
laid on the land year’s ago a
mass karma the whole waste of it
written off
in some astral accounts book
I can believe it
This is no joke it
was inhabited by animals, half man
half God knows what
they came from east of the sun
Firbolgs
Milesians
the Tuatha de Danaan
with wattle huts, strange religions, cattle
to barter for women, their
poets wrote strange
images of love and battle
One said:
“Blood bursts like snowflakes from their noses,”
watching a rout.
How can one comprehend a mind
like that
fifteen hundred years ago
These were strange people they
clustered in tribes paying
tribute to Tara;
they could not be ruled, can
I find words to tell you how it was?
III.
There is a dull beating
in the west, it is waves
crushing Shannon’s
fruitless shore
Celtic crosses stand
windswept on ‘scarps, eyeless
sockets catch the seawind
You will come of a sudden upon a tale
drifting in firesmoke
curled from an old man’s lips and
know its familiar refrain it
is out of secret Egypt and before
Out along the white roads of Connemara there are taverns
where shepherds gather:
Do not look into their eyes they
will fix you
upon a pin, your words
dead in your throat, your
breath froze up
on an ice-shrammed shore
IV.
There is no cure for it, drink
and be gone and be gone soon if you
value the dawn
pale-wet as it is
Do not talk of religions and battles
won and lost there is
more in that land than reason
can grasp
a harsh claw that
squeezes the heartblood and bids
its will be done
Do not laugh!
no man can
spend a night alone in the back
country
and ever be the same
That island is a crypt, a reliquary
of skulls the last
place of unrest for souls
a warp in the karma cycle
The old women will tell you but
not in those words
how can i say it?
I have seen this with my own eyes and
the memory will not be still
--30--
Much enjoyed this piece of yours, it has quite few good stanzas and the imagery is so rich!
is how I want to write.
I can hear the lilt in your words.
I can smell the peat fire and wet wool
taste the whiskey, hear the wind and rain.
You've the gift