I think I posted this poem before, but I am moved to repeat it. So much unhappiness and absolute misery in various parts of the world – nothing to do with Covid, just people mistreating other people. Why do we do this? And it has always been the way of humans.
My mouth is stretched –
A soundless wail of anguish
For the sorrows of the world
An eye into hell
In the corner of my room
Cry out your lamentations
Prostrate yourselves
And weep, and weep, and weep.
My mouth is stretched –
A soundless wail of anguish
For the sorrows of the world
An eye into hell
In the corner of my room
Cry out your lamentations
Prostrate yourselves
And weep, and weep, and weep.
I called you Peter
And you rocked the earth
My church is full of stones
I called you Fire
And you consumed me
My mouth is choked with ashes
I called you Truth
And handed you a sword
How often I am pierced
And pierced again
Old scars produce new blood
The letting leaves me
Desolate and grieving
The cycles of my life
Revolving endlessly.
So now I know and
Must accept my fate
The sear of ice is
Burning in my breast
I have tried to quench it
With the gasping taste
Of whiskey
With new distractions
I have tried to warm
My blood
Suicide wouldn’t suit me
I fear the gaping hole
Of hell
But ah, to be old and
Mindless
My wretched mouth
All gums and grins
The ice dissolved at last
In drools and dribbles.
I wear your absence
Like a heavy coat
How pale the day
I never thought
That it would be so hard
To root you out
But I will not regret
The desolation
Of these desert days
The shock of separation
From where my spirit
Lay so easy
Life’s a bugger
But I will grab
it by the ears
And shake it till it screams
Ecstatic.
Grey church humped in dusk
We huddle, linked
Wispy rain-curled fringes
Cold fingers
Avoid the avid glances
Of the neighbours
Here is the hearse
The priest in white, hand aloft
Accustomed to the rites
Calls him Gerard – but
His name was Jeremiah
Strange cousins
Twice and thrice removed
Clamour to shake hands
And kiss
Anticipating whiskey
He’d have hated this.
I called you Peter
And you rocked the earth
My church is full of stones
I called you Fire
And you consumed me
My mouth is choked with ashes
I called you Truth
And handed you a sword
How often I am pierced
And pierced again
Old scars produce new blood
The letting leaves me
Desolate and grieving
The cycles of my life
Revolving endlessly.
A rattle of keys at the back door
We waited – wary
His face shut tight against us
Like a fist
Toed-in, he crouched over furtive whiskeys
Fingers curled
Over chin and cigarette
And we ghosted from the room
With nervous grins
But once he showed me Dickens
And Maurice Walsh
And he was The Small Dark Man
Alone in a house of women
Cut off by his country voice
From the town
Squeezing memories
From an old melodeon
Sometimes – surprised
His face would lift with love
And fall again
Now I surprise myself
Toed-in, crouched over flagrant whiskeys
Fingers curled over chin and cigarette
And I have to leave the room.
My magic circle broken
Minus one
The first one
To close his eyes
At first I hardly noticed
You were gone, but now
Your absence grips my throat
Chokes my breath
How much of you is me?
I have your hands
Your hazel eyes
Your quick dismissive shrug
I have your taste
In books and booze
I hear my voice
Confirm your old convictions
How much of you is me
Stretching to close the circle?
Here I will rest
My ashes falling
Into swirls of bog-brown water
In Spring perhaps
The river quiet and the birds gone mad
My ghost will hover –
A shape in powdered white
Casting chills on my attendants
Willows hang their leaves
Across the rush of water
Such an airy, fragile green
And I think of you –
Your airy, fragile spirit
Gone out of turn before me
Our childhood memories
All lop-sided now
A pulse of anger yet –
Why aren’t you here!
You should be here!
The mystery of your absence
Plagues me
I kneel beside your grave
Bend low to sense your soul
Breathe in the smell of earth.
amazon.com/author/elizabethmerry
Twitter @elizabethmerry1
