Garden by night.
Huge moon hovers over the island.
the crows.
Between day and night. in the thick musk
of coal fire smoke, turf whores, smack bitches,
crackling sparkle divorces, cock a mouth men,
broken arse workers, fucked up father mothers,
cracking chats
between day and night,
( this eden is old testament )
a field swarms alive with black feathers, black eyes.
I have a mind for this kind of night
My Night alight over the horizon
Deep in a copper smelting of gone, fuck off sun,
Gone, coming night, gone day, gone,
Red and the sky horrifically illuminated
The nerves of my brain spreading
Like gaunt january trees,
A snaking cord somewhere conducting
Electricity shite-ing on and on
Two swans watch me with black beady eyes
Deep and dark with menace. I like them not.
A squadron of starlings flock quick by
Taut wing bones,
stretched feather,
Flapping hard hard,
flapped and
gone gone.
Moon now a presence over a stone wall.
Big enough to fucking eat.
What is the sound of this place without
The sound of this place marking itself
Through us as if we needed it to be thus
Or it needed us.
Perhaps I am the sound of the universe.
Or not.
Those birds cover that field in strangeness.
And their noise. Perhaps. That is the universe
Tonight.
Brendan McCormack lives on Inchydoney Island, Ireland. He has published two collections, Selling Heaven and Phuckle – Irish Auf English. He has been published all over the world and is one of Ireland’s greatest contemporary poets.
TJ Edson is the Art Director of Oddball Magazine and a volunteer at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery. He has also had work appear recently in Boston Compass.
Absolutely absorbing poem Brendan
Cheers Dave.