The Holy Cross of Rath-both rained blood from out its wounds, though distempers and diseases were not relieved thereby, and for five days we walked to see the whale cast up at Killybegs, and the three gold teeth found in its head. Lord Furnival died of an ulcer on his foot due to the miracles of Columcille and Brigid, and the other saints besides whose churches he had burnt. In the town of Sligo a goat gave birth to a piglet and the piglet gave birth to a stoat.

History of the Sonnet

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

I was watching you from over there and I’ve got to say I think you’re great.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

As the Latins say, seize the day and watch that dog and how time flies.

Four.

Three.

Two.

What I mean to say is I think I love you or anyway would love to fuck you.

One.

Sumthin’ sumthin’, sumthin’ sumthin’, sumthin’

Progress

Then said the Shepherds one to another, Let us here show the Pilgrims the Gates of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look through our Perspective Glass. The pilgrims lovingly accepted the motion: so they had them to the top of an high Hill, called Clear, and gave them their glass to look.

Then they tried to look; but the remembrance of that last thing that the Shepherds had shown them made their hands shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily through the glass; yet they thought they saw something like the Gate, and also some of the Glory of the place. Then they went away, and sang this Song.

(City of Destruction)

One thing I don’t get used to is looking up

and seeing nothing, the heavens as gaunt

as a blanket thrown over a birdcage but

last night, back home, whole galaxies festooned

the sky outside my room, a few fields

and a stream and a deep lane from O’Neill’s

old bawn, and a mile outside the market town

whose industries are matching; manufacturing

cement and processing the animals to meat.

(The Dog)

Down in the yard the Jack Russell barked

her co-ordinates out to an atmosphere

flecked like emery paper, the finest grade,

that whets the seriffed aerials and steeples,

sands carriageways and pastures flat. We

were warned not to deal with infinity

face to face: the icy bodies, the fire planets,

the swirling vast accreting gas giants,

all that spinning immaterial matter

like whether in Robert Alter’s fine translation

Do not fling me from your presence

is verse eleven or verse twelve.

(Hill Difficulty)

Our mild and violent land of the giant

leylandii and four-bar bitumen fences.

Of porn mags stashed in blackthorn hedges.

The snout of a shotgun nuzzling out under

the valance as the eldest goes hoking for

presents from Santa beneath the bed.

Should Orestes just have been acquitted,

walked off scot-free? Not hard to get blood

from a stone if it’s smashed in someone’s face.