Domestic

He found them:
the slave clarting,
clamouling round her

lying askant her,
fork to ghowl
and her panting.

The ould dog lying
with his head down, told him
this wasn't the first time

and the gall rose in him,
he barged,
reefed the cunt off her

and went for his sword.
The dog leapt at the weapon,
tossing it from him

but he grabbed and pulled
the forelegs akimbo,
burst the heart.

It landed in a heap at his feet
and he stepped over
caught the slave by the hair

dragged him outside, naked
and baying like a hound,
asked me to bring a bill hook

fetched the bastard to his knees
and carried the head off him,
fucked it in the river.

He went back for her,
this time trembling.
The rage shook him.

He found her wailing
protestations, innocence,
rape or anything

to leave the life lying
up against her.
He took her by the head

threw her out, ordered her
taken north and left,
told her never to come back.

Tomorrow, he'll see the poet
ask his hardest curse upon her,
seal it with that clump

of her hair and scalp
he grips there
in his bloodied hand.



A Blessing And A Curse

1. Baile Átha Seannaidh

He came to me that morning
and him in tears
over the killing of the hound.
He said the dog was dear
to him and loyal to its task.
It had, he said, attempted
to protect his wife
and that he regretted
the taking if its life.

He said that we should fetch a bier
and give the dog a soldier's funeral,
ask the gods' blessing, bury it
beside the water
and name the ford
in Seannadh's honour.

2. Baile na Mallacht

My next job was to curse his wife
and I thought hard about what to say,
for hers was a crime of the flesh
and so I thought the flesh should pay.
I decided first, to wait a day
until we had marched east and crossed
the lake and entered woodland
(I wanted a place where I could get away)
where I could be alone to lay the curse.

On my return, I gathered all of us
together and announced her flesh
would age but she would not know death
and though she might give birth
she'd know no children, plus
from this day on no roof would cover her,
no man believe her oath, and women shun her.
I said she'd have to perform ten thousand acts
of mercy before she'd get one back
and ordered her name, from that point on,
to be forgotten.

Excavation

1.

They asked me to make a story of the bones,
to look into the earth and find the root cause,
to gather a harvest of evidence and bring it home.

The ground spoke of flood, the bones were pillowed
by alluvium and by the imprint that they made in it,
I knew the silt to be freshly laid about the time they died.

The arrangement of the bones spoke not of burial
but of scattering. These corpses had rotted
where they lay in all their limb-splayed indignity.

It was obvious that very few, if any had survived,
for otherwise some would have been arrayed,
or buried, or at the very least, laid out.

Of all the bones, only three bodies belonged to men,
this spoke very clearly of the stud; a tribe ruled by women,
or three chieftains and their warlike concubines.

The implements found were entirely used as weapons,
bill hook had done battle with the sword; the masons' trowel
found embedded in backs, or wedged between sets of ribs.

2.

These things they've found tie in with the old story
told by my people and passed from knee to knee,
about three tribes of women who had taken
to sea around the time of the great flood.

Each tribe saved a man to fill their bellies,
and the children married across the tribes.
We were told they founded a utopia,
somewhere on an island in the west.

It was said that they'd hidden the whole island
(being practised in the use of magic arts)
and the race they bred became so learned
they discovered how to conquer even death.

And from time to time, they still visit,
to save the worthy in their hour of need
and though they have done away with hierarchy,
the rest of mankind simply calls them gods.

3.

How do I tell my people the gods are dead?
I don't - if I want to keep my head.

I'll say that these were a band of peaceful traders
butchered by the savage native raiders.

It is easier (and safer) to manufacture
an enemy and send the soldiers into action.

The feel-good factor from our victory
will offset any possible bad publicity

generated by liberals giving it the vocals
while we get on with wiping out the locals.

Removing The Tongue

There is no need to be crude about it.
No call for twisting and gripping.
Shears and pliers won't be necessary.

All that need be done is a couple of swift cuts
right at the base of the muscle, sever the tendon.
There will be surprisingly little blood, minimal pain.

But the tongue is rendered useless, it lolls
along the pallet and refuses to move.
Then there's just a short period of mourning,

After that, silence. Tell him then that he's a dummy.
He'll believe you then!

Legacy

The plague ran through us, doubling the numbers
of the corpses every week, quickening the disease.
The rats just gnawed the bodies and bred their fleas.

Why did I not go when I knew the differ? It's my job.
For what's a poet got without his people, cut him off
and he's a madman babbling foolish verses to himself.

My voice will cry out from my dead people, caoin
their story to the fetid air, and it will hang on this land
like the mist that rots the crop out on the fields.

I know there will be others to come after, and others
who will speak for them, someone will have to pick our story
from the strange bones they find scattered on this plain.

They will come to the same realization, that this is a land
that thrives on blood, they will know the ecstasy of killing,
the sweet pain that bleeds of joining the subsumed.

Account

First, the flu-like symptoms, the minor annoyances
of phlegm and mucus, the aches and agues
of joint and muscle. But these soon give way
to gradual disintegration, a slow creep of fluid,
swellings at the neck, knees and ankles, restrictions
on movement and speech. In the middle stages
the fever comes, brings with it lumps, solid in groins
and oxters, the sharp knives of pain if these are touched.

By this time, it has you bed-ridden, raving and incontinent.
Then it comes: a rash that breaks to sores and screams,
leaves you stuck to the bed-sheet with your own blood,
moves from the skin in, and by the way the flesh melts
like tallow from your bones, you know you've taken
the disease, and it you, straight to the marrow, home.

Signals

She carried beauty as though it were
a gun, shot eyes all eider and ice.
She was a star I reached for in water,
an answer I looked for again and again
like a lighthouse sweeping a bay.
Somewhere the meanings all got lost
or melded into myth or Morse or hieroglyphs,
and the world forgot them.

And blind boats steer out past rocks,
the surf crashes and the wind sounds
like a low moan across the headland,
while I stand here on the shore, turning
again to hob-nail my way through all
the ploughed lands of language.
She dances the fallow field of my dreams.


^

Biography

Nigel McLoughlin was born in Enniskillen in 1968. He has been twice short-listed for a Hennessy Award and placed in The Kavanagh Prize and The New Writer Poetry Prize. He was Writer-In-Residence in Fermanagh in 2002 and he lectured in Traditions at Poets' House from 2000 to 2004. He holds an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and his third collection, Blood, which will be published in March 2005 by Bluechrome, formed the basis for his PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. His first collection, At The Waters' Clearing (Flambard/Black Mountain Press, 2001) received widespread critical approval and his second collection, Songs For No Voices (Lagan Press, 2004) has just been published. He co-edited the anthology Breaking The Skin (Black Mountain Press, 2002) and his poetry and translations have featured in The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Irish Times and The Sunday Tribune, and have been published in respected literary journals and anthologies in Ireland, Britain, Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and Japan. More information on Nigel can be found on his website: www.nigelmcloughlin.com.