without opening the mouth

like vegetable life, but less reliable, huddled in the light

of the blind upstairs, and those are not the lingering odours of Paradise

yet they do seem free from a townie fear

of unfit, unkind, unmarked places, the undistracted measure

my fellow peregrini in self-exile, the form

of ascetic renunciation most available to Irishmen

Efforts are made to dissuade him . . .

Efforts are made to dissuade him
from his retreat

dress codes, character disorders

abecedarian hymns of praise

laws

he who does not cut his hair in the Roman manner, must

she who leaves hers uncovered, must not

no consort with pagans, no believing in vampires

no changing your mind, no wandering

can a person be trusted whose principles forbid despair?

I spot the cleric from a distance by his wide sleeves

his minor build’s angle of progress

he looks like someone who sleeps for pleasure

that iron bell a tiresome associate, a bit much

and I will soon be in earshot of his sentences

which exude an ugliness arising in nature

as a mix of banality and abundance

Evidence of his own cult in Pictland . . .

Evidence of his own cult in Pictland exists

in the distribution of carved stones

bearing his name

I can’t be sure now there ever was humility in it

burning the self as though it were a city

believing the past might be destroyed

and remade

we Companions of God appeared, even to ourselves

to experience our visions as actual contests

confronting dragons as did the Child Jesus

conversing with the irritable waters of the Albus Fons

improving on Servanus’ arguments with the devil while striding broad tracts of land

in satisfaction and in duty to the people

to whom we offered evidence of those who lived and died

contrary to nature’s precedents

those blessed by the artifacts claimed special talents

certainly, they seemed to get a lot more done

but the veneration of relics became a trade in relics eventually suggesting

our dear saints possessed, in addition to divine attributes

more than the usual number of working parts

to whom belonged all the blood-soaked cloth?

the surfeit of St. Pancras?

corpses piled up until the whole world was a tomb

death lost its autonomy, strange to say, it sickened

the boundary between place and no-place

no longer firm

it reduced our ability to think metaphorically

we believed the things we said because we said them

and as my colleagues grew incapable

of speaking off-brand, in the middle voice

the temper of my own voice drained away

“Ethernan” likely derived from the Latin . . .

“Ethernan” likely derived

from the Latin “aeternus,”

or “eternal”

until, finally, all was noise

rage and shame of creatures domesticated by brutality

uncanny beings mechanized under the influence

of austerity’s single truth

and the amphetamine of perpetual conflict

in a region of caves with a hermit in each like worms in cabbages

a vacancy

deep, vibrant compartments, chimney announced by a draft