Immram

I
Home Thoughts

Beyond the orange honeycomb of cars,
Old sows in bags, split plastic pipes,
We journeyed down and out from local bars
To fame and fortune, dispersing for dear life
The frequency of light, the tide of time
That rose so high in the lane back home.
We carved in water a dark and deep design;
A voyage of discovery, ourselves alone.

And always there’s an ample amber cave
With uisce beatha, hieroglyphics and a sage.
He speaks in riddles, blames full the knave
Of hearts and all the arts of birds in cages
Who gaze in mirrors to beat the band
Salvation coasting from a foreign land.

II
Kingdom Come

Titanic hammers whale out a back beat
For the Sandy Row Blues.
Down the docks they riveted big belled ships;
My father’s work is never done.

Locked in the metronome of lost time
Their ghosts quicken under the icy water
To stalk the empire with the Belfast curse;
We are the last of your faithful men

In the endless night they are swallowed whole;
As inside Ireland they drum against a balaena of bone
Tapping unheard, a morse code
Out of that monster they thought they’d come to break

III
In Memory of Patrick Kavanagh

At the townland’s edge sky is sea
Rising Ascension blue to lapis lazuli
Between inked atolls
Where men are not to be discovered.

We could have read had we not imagined
Would have rounded the globe had we not written
Stayed had we not permitted
Small miracles.