Those knotting pulses, episodic, swell
as well-damped mandrake seeds had fused to one,
roots and shoots tangling, planetesimal,
shrieking mouths drifting through a mind alone
resolving onto blue weatherboarding,
holding up the right of the raised back-plot.
All bitter grit, wind-sown of darkest keening,
drifts away - sorrow the pear tree forgot.
Two pigeons in their feeding palaver -
he must peck her as much as peck at seed -
stiffened, blustery public-persona.
Begone with you. Leave me to my newsfeed.
Cellphone is flashing all this world's trouble:
'Let us in; oh, sign this now; fund us, do,
for the Happy Townland is a bauble;
and burning eyes of soldiers run us through.
Bees are dying.' Suffering masses groan:
'For stricken lungs this city-clay grew tall.
The rich will take the rusk from baby-mine.
Compassion's dying. Fascists prowl our hall.'
In silent intervals of sanity,
some unknown bird tries out a snatch of song;
black earth's patched with green cotyledons. See
how your friend steadies you, bids you be strong.
...............
'The Happy Townland' is a poem by Yeats. The burning eyes of soldiers refers to Auden's 'O What is that Sound?' The 'clay grew tall' refers to Wilfred Owen's 'Futility'.
