Requiem

Oh! if I'd known the road was broken --
I would not have breathed the stars,
drowned my head in brackish oceans,
trekked over black earth so far.

God! if I'd known the track was beaten --
I would not have swam through fire,
ate the blood fruit from sweet Eden,
prophesied my funeral pyre.

Ha! if I'd known the path was undone --
I would not have danced with fervour,
engraved myself in shapes of sun,
loved you how I loved the cold air.

To Phobos

I strip away the indolent cower
For fear did not create this tower;
Upon this rock it holds no power;

Over this wild being, restraint
Is not the palette, not the paint -
It will not mar, it will not taint,

Nor will it sacrifice the art
Inside the throbbing savage heart.
But it will be a burning part
Raging against eternal dark.

So bring the metal anvil through,
And let me smash the night in two,
Sheep herd, murmur quick adieus

To foul, troubled winters bleak.
For are storms quiet, are they meek?
Is not mad winter what men seek?

Is this what evolution primed
Year after year, time after time,
That man churn out falsetto mimes,
Whilst tired with his daily grind?

I will rise up, and say this much:
That disappointment cannot touch
Those men who shape their lives in such

Boundaries and chained confines
Which assets grasp and then refine
The future hope for the divine.

But neither can he feel the sun
Of bravery radiant upon
Green fields of dreams that he has spun
That only through action is won.

Undone

Uncoil the yarn, liberate the string,

Half of Kephisos dried up in the spring.  

Undo the cord, relinquish the rope,

Cut callidity from our dearest corpse.

Unravel the wool, tend to the thread -

We strip away our unforgotten dead.  

Faith {Poem}

God has no heart, He has no heart!

For twenty years I fell apart,

For twenty years I was sewed up,

By moral candles - now all snuffed.

For twenty years I found my Art,

In gutter, palace, nature, fort,

In hollow parts of Holy Word,

I was unheard, I was unheard!

It was all dark, it stayed all dark!

For twenty years no angels harked,

The influx of a hallow light,

Was concave bound by cracks of night.

‘Till one day came up in the spring,

I did not wrestle with this thing,

Enthralled by black parts of the sea,

I wandered in, eternally.

__

Catherine McManus