The Pagan Field
Here
in a place of Gods
without
worship
stones
without mortar and
graves
stripped of souls
a
tourist silence hangs itself
web-like
from
each jagged edge
air
clings with stale memories
to
each niche of ancient art
river
swirls on naked eye
suns
are born and moons consumed
by
dark
the
dead have abandoned their graves
ashes
to dust
they
are blown by an aimless wind
distant
from the tombs of men
without
prayer without names
THE BONE ORCHARD ON STEPHEN’S GREEN
The cacophonous
tones of mobile phones
and drumming
clog of pedestrian slog
stops abruptly
at the gate
As a portal to
another world
the Bone
Orchard squats between
red brick and
concrete
Half-hidden
resting place for the Huguenots
sinking ships
of stone
table-graves
wrecked on the crests
and gorges of a
frozen sea of soil
Vine and lily
and moss vying
for dominance
over urns and names
To retreat into
the street is to see
this morbid garden
concealed by a modern metropolis
almost
forgotten
the cold bones
in the corner of Stephen’s Green
their memories
whispering to grey
Alone under a rainstorm on Loch Crew
The Gods are angry in me
sideways rain above Loch Crew
distant fingers of lightning
encaging Tara Hill
monsters and myths in spray and foam
die in epigrammatic agonies
broken on the beach of Dunany
They are all real
as valid as any Divinity or Demon
as corporeal as human flesh
as real as the strikes on stone
that spiral into infinity
an infinity as lingering as the ancient
lines on the hand that struck them
Knocknaree
Breathless
the Journeyman pauses
January
cold rising damp from deep in the soil
through
his booted feet and up
tired
legs into shaking stomach and rasping lungs
The
world opens as a magic trick beneath him
squares
of bad land ringed with rock walls
painted
by an ethereal hand
on
his raw windshield eye
A
motionless city is struck dumb by the wind
filling
up the valley with the fungi of buildings
while
above the birds auger what they will
without
interpretation
The
brown mountain slumps
thrust
into the sea like a discarded midden
raised
by ancient giants with it bulbous crown
atop
a snow haired head and furrowed brow
Hand
over hand each stone of Kinghood
weathering
the storms of four millennia
and
the soles of countless souls
beating
on the drum of the earth a long rhyme
Dead
but sleep beneath the pile
they
have no ears for the rhythm
yet
shell-like they hear each and every whisper
as
a scream
Closed
mouth and chilled bone
the
Journeyman rings the crown
a
vigil paid with all Gods, One and None
he
lightly climbs down
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