Gary Allen
Submerging
Every lough holds a secret –
oh the darkness of the mind –
the mourning black water in the evening
folding onto reedy banks,
the last turn-off before the motorway
the little mission hut down the dirty lane.
Tell me a story you lonely ones –
each soul has its damned vocation
as well as grace –
a tall round finger of stone
on a holy island of blood
points to the masses on the city streets
where no one speaks anymore of love – or death.
Men have always hidden their lives here:
beneath the waters murky with decomposing vegetation
lie artefacts of abandonment or sacrifice –
all the bones of a violent race
gold chalices and broken clay.
And then there are the long days when coracles
cross the calm surface from island to island
while you lie in your own time
on a narrow bed in a high-rise flat
listening to the radio echo explosions
in the stream-like streets below
and Belfast Lough stagnates in warm mud
like the shrinking shipyards
the boundaries of Tigers Bay
or the confines of reason
rippling outwards to your finger tips.
oh the darkness of the mind –
the mourning black water in the evening
folding onto reedy banks,
the last turn-off before the motorway
the little mission hut down the dirty lane.
Tell me a story you lonely ones –
each soul has its damned vocation
as well as grace –
a tall round finger of stone
on a holy island of blood
points to the masses on the city streets
where no one speaks anymore of love – or death.
Men have always hidden their lives here:
beneath the waters murky with decomposing vegetation
lie artefacts of abandonment or sacrifice –
all the bones of a violent race
gold chalices and broken clay.
And then there are the long days when coracles
cross the calm surface from island to island
while you lie in your own time
on a narrow bed in a high-rise flat
listening to the radio echo explosions
in the stream-like streets below
and Belfast Lough stagnates in warm mud
like the shrinking shipyards
the boundaries of Tigers Bay
or the confines of reason
rippling outwards to your finger tips.
Gary Allen was born in Ballymena, Co Antrim. He has published two full-length collections, Languages (Flambard / Black Mountain 2002) and Exile (Black Mountain 2004).
Page(s) 76
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