Sample
Poem
from ASYLUM ROAD
Macchu Picchu, Inis Mór
For Pura Lopez Colome
On the ferry out we talk about marvels:
the poet that left his mistress for his wife --
and translate images; they break the surface
of our talk like new islands. To the west
a red heart bleeds over the airstrip,
to the east, licked by terra cotta flames
a daz-white angel is fighting the devil for a soul
--
he pulls desperately on one leg
but the devil has him by the head. The soul
scorched and nearly torn in two
is wearing a bainín jacket and Reebok trainers
--
it must be the Gaeltacht they're intent
on saving.
The soul is hacking at them both
with a rusty halo bent into a T na G logo.
What would that mean in Mexico?
Well, you tell me in accented English,
'The little guy in the middle is the loser.'
'The devil spins around and flashes us a smile
like Al Pacino. I chant Ó'Flatharta's ode to
the cregg,
which flowers as we roam the island.
Small fields of primroses and gentians
have the terrible freshness of lost children.
Here sweet accidents are married to
hard labour.
Poets make uneasy pagans.
Chiapas, you say, Chiapas, and tell me
that in Mexico there would be red earth.
'And scorpions to give the line bite.'
We have sirens and seashells in common
though later at Dun Aengus I angle
my body out from the clefts in the limestone
in case. This small stone citadel
is no match for Oaxaca or Macchu Picchu
but it serves the same purpose --
as good a place as any to start the
past,
to offer gifts of older Gods,
Celtic or Mayan, it doesn't matter;
they are idols of our own desire to comfort
those who swept up the mess
left by torture, emigration, famine,
again and again and again. The ones that were left.
There must have been more to their lives than this,
we think, they must have had simple faith,
if only in the dead partying along the seashore,
the caoin of a guitar, white roses on the water.
Canvas Currach II
The black canvas drawn like a dress
over the ribs is skin this time.
Not even a treacherous shift
separates her from the waves.
The people on this coast know the sea
holds or gives up whom she will
and yields occasional miracles -- coral,
gold coins, ambergris.
She shoulders up the lumps of water
between her and sanctuary
as good as the oarsmen she has drawn;
they are her luck, and the red-tipped oars
dip like fingers into a sea of bones.
She makes shore. Now all depends
on what they call this sleek stranger --
jetsam or treasure.
(Copyright Mary O'Malley 2001)
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