The White Window
Of my love's body I think
That it is a white window.
Her clothes are curtains:
By day drawn over
To conceal the light;
By night drawn back
To reveal the dark.
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Paul
In the rush-hour traffic outside the centre-city church
I stood with my bicycle waiting for the lights to change—
A Raleigh bicycle with upright handlebars
That I had purchased for two pounds fifty pence in The Pearl—
When a priest in black soutane and white surplice
Materialized in the darkness of the porch.
He glided over to me:
‘I am about to begin a funeral Mass but I have no mourners.
Would you be prepared to act as a mourner for me?’
As we paced up the aisle, the priest enlightened me:
‘He was about the same age as yourself,
All you know about him is that his name was Paul.’
I knelt in the front pew,
The coffin on trestles alongside me,
Its flat abdomen next to my skull.
I felt as a mother must feel
All alone in the maternity ward
With her infant in the cot at the foot of the bed,
A feeling that everything is going to be all right
But that we are all aliens in the cupboard,
All coat hangers in the universe.
The priest—a seven-foot-tall, silver-haired peasant in his eighties—
Instructed me to put my bicycle in the hearse beside the coffin.
The two of us sat in front with the driver.
At a major traffic junction near the cemetery of Mount Prospect
We had to brake to avoid knocking down a small boy.
The car behind us bumped into our rear bumper,
Inducing the bicycle to bump against the coffin.
We saw a prominent politician in the back seat blessing herself.
At the graveside as the priest said prayers
I got the feeling that the coffin was empty;
That Paul, whoever he was.
Was somewhere else.
‘How do you know that his name was Paul?’
I asked the priest as we tiptoed away.
He handed me a creased sheet
Of blue vellum unlined notepaper—Belvedere Bond:
Dear Paul—Thank you for your marriage proposal
But I am engaged to be married in Rome in June.
Best wishes always, Mary
Queen of Loneliness.
A Vision of Democracy in the County of Meath
When I got up this morning, I went out
To look at the rain. I had planned
To spend the morning with my gun,
Thinking about the story of my life.
But I saw that it was raining
And I decided to go out and have a look at the rain.
What struck me about the rain was how lit up,
Illuminated and fluorescent it was,
A bright rain of democracy.
The sky was grey as sheep
And tumbling over itself on low legs
But the rain was wearing lights under its tights
And strip lighting in the stitching of its jackets.
I saw in the park in front of the house
A Singer sewing machine freshly painted black.
Its treadle was pumping up and down
When the woman who was sitting at it saw me look at her
She looked up and shaking her head a little
She smiled and shook her head a little again and stated:
‘I am just an ordinary democrat’,
And when I looked as if
I was about to reach for a quiver of words
She repeated herself without emphasis:
‘I am just an ordinary democrat—
Take me as I am or not at all.’
I began to walk across the park towards her,
Ready to hand in my gun, ready to vote,
Ready to vanish, ready to disappear,
Wanting only to be her servant in all things great and small.
I will take you as you are or not at all.
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La Terre des Hommes
Fancy meeting you out here in the desert:
Hallo Clockface.
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Aughawall Graveyard
Lonely lonely lonely lonely:
The story with a middle only.
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The Difficulty that is Marriage
We disagree to disagree, we divide, we differ;
Yet each night as I lie in bed beside you
And you are faraway curled up in sleep
I array the moonlit ceiling with a mosaic of question marks;
How was it I was so lucky to have ever met you?
I am no brave pagan proud of my mortality
Yet gladly on this changeling earth I should live for ever
If it were with you, my sleeping friend.
I have my troubles and I shall always have them
But I should rather live with you forever
Than exchange my troubles for a changeless kingdom.
But I do not put you on a pedestal or throne;
You must have your faults but I do not see them.
If it were with you, I should live for ever.
Paul Durcan
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