ARDMORE
The churn of Loch a
Chadh-fi births the choir
Of mocking zombies singing out the old
East German National Anthem, while the gyre
Behind the motor calls him to its cold
Unspoken danger, like the siren pool
At Caldbeck, three years earlier, pulling down
In quiet and plain sight, wondering wryly who’ll
play hero, as he meekly learns to drown.
Then dessicated on Foinaven’s ridge
He gasps and pukes up trickles; now he’s tied
to Lowther, three years earlier, hears the bridge
and chorus, singing “look on the bright side”.
Of life and death, so glibly and so soon
he’s forced to learn a fragment of his tune.
KABALE
The rainy season’s certainties laid bare,
Kabale fizzed. I felt like I could see
The bottom half of Africa, and there
I tell you I was brave. Then look at me
Alone and walking roads all burnt and white
For miles untroubled by my superpower,
A person among persons in plain sight
Half-caked in mud, parboiled in each fresh shower
McManaman! He cried, McManaman!
the hotel TV snapped me back, and I
was never quite so brave or true again
so wholly, firmly lost under the sky.
McManaman!, months later, home and hosed,
An echo, just a ghost, a chapter closed.
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