Thursday, January 28, 2016

The Bell Ringer

He came among us first at Christmas
when, as a young boy , I heard him climb
the creaking stairs to ring the heavy bell.
His back bent low beneath the knotted rope,
he would ring out forever
over the stubble fields,
across numberless townlands,
to the tiny houses flickering in moon-thickets
against the northern sky.

He rang loud,
he rang long,
almost forever so I thought,
and then in the silence he was gone,
lost in the crowded lamp-lit Church,
in the dying embers of the lingering bell.
And I would listen to the silence he had made,
for he and the wind and the bell were one.

Sometimes the wind would blow the sound
across the land, and it was heard loud
where it was never heard at all.
He and the bell were one, bound
together by the knotted rope
he held in his worn hands.
The rope would wrench his arms and chest,
his head bent low beneath his work,
he belonged to the bell,
and the bell belonged to the wind,
and he and the wind and the bell were one,
bound together by the knotted rope
that did not sing but spoke
of his pain in the dumb silence
that swung across the air
when he had gone,
descending the stair.
And all that I knew was the bell-ringer,
and he and the bell were one.

But this was so long ago,
so long that sometimes I hear
the bell resound within me,
knowing it loud and true
and off by heart
in still days of wonder.

 - Cathal Lagan

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

I belong to a stranger

Like a tin of paint
I want to empty myself on the walls of your heart
in colours dark and bright and crimson
like the moon when it menstruates
and the clumsiness of my childhood
streaming blood down my knees

I want to draw my fears in pictures,
wrap them in your arms
that you may hold them
as if
they are your children

some days, when the sun shines brighter than usual,
I dream in colour
about moments filled with laughter and wrinkles
etched for a lifetime
on our lips
as we flash by in sepia
in dreams that were
to become

then the clouds draw in,
casting shadows on your face

you become the stranger that you are.

I shatter  

again

and again

and again. 

 - Alvené Appollis-du Plessis