Monday, November 28, 2011

Paul Durcan: Christmas Day





Excerpt One 

                    There was a young widow in black
                    In Glasnevin Cemetery. I heard her
                    Before I saw her - the tapping
                    On the tarmacadam of her high heels.
                    I spun around and I saw her
                    Hurdling towards me across the headstones,
                    Her yellow hair tucked into her black suede jacket,
                    Her blue mini-skirt more daring than a fig leaf,
                    The white ponies of her teeth
                    Riding red lipstick.
                    As we were about to pass
                    We stopped and stared
                    And she smiled and I gazed
                    Into the waterfall of her eyes
                    Waiting for it to stop
                    Thinking that she was a clock
                    But she was not a clock -
                    She was a woman,
                    A preoccupied soul.
                    Is there a role
                    For my twenty-three-year-old son?
                    She said: 'Have you got the time?'
                    I said: 'It is three o'clock.'
                    She said - as if I had invented time -
                    With dismay: 'Is it three o'clock?'
                    And I wanted to change my mind and say
                    That there was no time today,
                    That Christmas Day is a timeless day.
                    Instead I repeated: 'It is three o'clock'
                    And she walked on out of my life
                    Up the aisle under the yews
                    Towards the Parnell altar stone.
                    When she was out of earshot I said to her:
                    'May I hold your hand?'

                                                        Excerpt Two

                    The worst thing about loneliness
                    Is not loneliness.
                    The worst thing about loneliness
                    Is selfishness:
                    The savagery of selfishness.

                                                    Excerpt Three 

                    Why do computer programmers always answer
                    When asked in questionnaires
                    In Sunday newspapers
                    What is your idea of Heaven? -
                    Snorkelling in Acapulco.
                    Why do they never say
                    What I would say?
                    My idea of Heaven as a man
                    Is to be lying on my back
                    Smiling up into the eyes of a woman,
                    Her face latticed by her hair,
                    Her shoulders braced
                    As she squats in her starting blocks.
                    She leaps out of her blocks
                    To race 100 metres
                    Over low hurdles
                    In 10.8 seconds
                    While I lie under her
                    Clinging to her
                    And she spits on my shoulder -
                    There! -
                    And whinnies and dozes
                    And then she straightens the pillows
                    And the blankets, folds me up,
                    All my parts,
                    And puts me away in her violin case
                    Until the next time she decides
                    To go to hounds and cross over the river
                    To the other side.

No comments: