Three Poems

Down Survey (1655-1657)

The young men chanted beside the public way:

Is there any sorrow like ours
who have forfeited our possessions
and all respect?

And the virgins of the Parrish of Killmainham
hung down their heads.


Cul de Sac

It was late at night, with the neighbourhood
unfamiliar after so long.
I took a turn too soon

and stopped at a terrace of grey houses
across from the windows of my old school,
the double-fronted disused house still closing the street

and a man lying in the headlights
at the foot of the steps, in a black soutane,
with his arm across his face.


Breakdown
...