Upside down in your
bright blue painted currach
You prevent me from drowning
By throwing me some lifeline: a song of love
But then, you watch me: how I slowly sing and sink.
Coldly, a smile folded in your dry cheeks
you hold me like a wrench in your mindless hands,
so you can pump fresh blood
Into my voice, that bulges and bursts
And floods the music that fails to make your heart beat
Or your body sail.
A flicker of hope is the flash of the knife
Coming out of the night’s dark waters
I think: Where are all these hooded people going
Wound-up puppets, the invisible push
Of time in their backs.
I am sitting out the hours not knowing
why I am still afloat with the memory of your currach
and that once I get hold of the knife
I can cut my chords,
Lose the lifeline,
Suffer the sharpness of silence
Listen to death: singing about the Irish Messiah
Copyright © Judith Mok 2011. Recorded and produced by Shane Booth. All Rights Reserved.
