Pádraig Ó Tuama

They say Satan teased Sarah while
her husband tied their son up on a mountain.
It's an old story: a man tests the limits of religion
while the devil's on a mission to a woman.

The devil said He's dead! Oh wait! He's not!
Sarah heard a gunshot
and did the only thing she could.
She reached beyond herself and died.

Meanwhile Isaac sees a frenzy
on the face of a patriarch,
and an angel's screaming out a name
and everything's going dark. Afterwards,

they never spoke again. One went
his way and the other went another.
Isaac's mother dead, he followed Hagar
to the desert. Hagar married Abraham

but Isaac stayed away, didn't even send a
text. He pulled the blinds down, tried to rest.
Then his father died, so God blessed Isaac, Isaac
never quite recovered from the loss.

Then Rebecca came along and saw it all.
She'd studied Freud, so knew her boys would
tell stories that their father couldn't bear.
She tore her hair out, then devised a plan.



But even she was foiled; her boys grew up.
Her boys forgot the fights of childhood, spat out
bitter herbs, and limped towards each other
when the Angel settled down at last.

There may not be a God or a Sarah.
There may not be a garden or a man who
ordered soup up to his room.
There may not be a mountain.

But there's always been a woman with the truth.
But there's always been a brother full of shame.
There's always been a story, and there's
always been a devil in the details.
...

One day I repented my resentment because I realised I'd forgotten
to repeat it. For a while—no, for a long while—it was like a prayer,
rising to the skies, morning after morning, like a siren that wouldn't quiet.

And then I remembered other things: the way I walk lighter these days;
the way you never knew my story of divorce; the way I am tired of being
forced among the new; and the way I miss having someone to speak to about
things I don't need to explain; the way we shared a name.

So I decided.

I took a flight and hung around the areas where we used to meet.
I loitered with intent. I was hungry with hope but couldn't eat alone.
I missed the home your body was, even though we're grown now,
I missed your smell, your wrestle, your snoring breath.

And when I saw you, I saw you'd changed too.
So much behind us we didn't need to name.
...

Pádraig Ó Tuama
‘You're too young
to know about The Troubles,'
the peaceman said.

And the youngman said:

f a t h e r s h o t d e a d
m o t h e r f e l l a p a r t
b r o t h e r f e l l i n t o h i m s e l f
o t h e r b r o t h e r s e n t t o l i v e w i t h o t h e r s
a n d m e i s m o t h e r e d e v e r y t h i n g
i w a s f a r m e d a r o u n d
a n d n o w y e a r s l a t e r
w e h a v e f o u n d o u r s e l v e s b a c k b e n e a t h
a s h a r e d a n d t r o u b l e d c e i l i n g.

Not yet.

No—one's too young
to know about The Troubles.
...

It's funny how things come in
circles.
You, sitting on a step,
smoking a cigarette,
watching leaves fall off a
slowly stripping tree.
Me, hanging photos on a wall,
including one of you
receiving, like a priestess,
your lover's confession.
Me telling stories of
your conversations.
You, weeping
when your dad asked you
how you were.
Me writing poems about life
while I was slowly plunging into
death.
You breathing in those
same lines,
sitting on a step,
smoking a cigarette.
...

27ú lá Meitheamh, 2012

Because what's the alternative?
Because of courage.
Because of loved ones lost.
Because no more.
Because it's a small thing; shaking hands; it happens every day.
Because I heard of one man whose hands haven't stopped shaking since a market day in Omagh.
Because it takes a second to say hate, but it takes longer, much longer, to be a great leader.
Much, much longer.

Because shared space without human touching doesn't amount to much.
Because it's easier to speak to your own than to hold the hand of someone whose side has been previously described, proscribed, denied.
Because it is tough.
Because it is tough.
Because it is meant to be tough, and this is the stuff of memory, the stuff of hope, the stuff of gesture, and meaning and leading.
Because it has taken so, so long.
Because it has taken land and money and languages and barrels and barrels of blood.

Because lives have been lost.
Because lives have been taken.

Because to be bereaved is to be troubled by grief.
Because more than two troubled peoples live here.
Because I know a woman whose hand hasn't been shaken since she was a man.
Because shaking a hand is only a part of the start.
Because I know a woman whose touch calmed a man whose heart was breaking.
Because privilege is not to be taken lightly.

Because this just might be good.
Because who said that this would be easy?
Because some people love what you stand for, and for some, if you can, they can.
Because solidarity means a common hand.
Because a hand is only a hand; so hang onto it.

So join your much discussed hands.
We need this; for one small second.
So touch.
So lead.
...

In-between the sun and moon,
I sit and watch
and make some room
for letting light and twilight mingle,
shaping hope
and making single glances last eternity,
a little more,
extending love beyond the doors of welcoming,
while wedding all the parted people,
even sons to violent mothers,
and searching all the others finding light
where twilight lingers,
in-between the sun and moon.
...

hapter one

there are no chapters



chapter two

he has been moved beyond belief



chapter three

and he is inching toward glory
with only his own story on his back
he has patched up holes that opened
where his coverings have cracked
and some shoes were never meant for hiking so
he left them far behind
there are simple things he needs
on journeys such as these
foodandloveanddrinkandwarmthandcomfort
and a bag that's small enough
to carry all the failures and the idols
that he's picked up on the way

there are some days
he only moves
an inch or two

this is the pace of glory here in exile



chapter four

there are some things too meaningful for talking
and even feeling leaves us full of grief
at all we touch and need and
can never speak of

we are living lives that we can‘t state the name of
we are loving things that
we can never bear
we attempt belief in things that we can not explain
and we rest uneasy in this
sometimesseemingcruelgame

and we rest with tension so
beautiful
its heartaching



chapter five

he has grown older here.

the body speaks its own
language
and
he has started listening



the unwritable chapter

and the place of
pain
is the place of
survival
(and sometimes barely that)



chapter six

there is no ending.
everything is here.
(so pitch a tent that you can live in
and find a friend to whom you'll give
in
times of telling
times of testing
times of listening
times of resting)
there is no ending.
everything is here.
...

And there was banging on the bins that night
and many frightened people woke
and noted down the hour.
The clock of hunger-strikers dead is not ignored with ease
and ‘please, God, please keep loved ones safe' was then
repeated round and round and round
like rosaries told upon a bead,
or shoes upon the ground of orange walking.

The five demands, the five-year plan
that saw a blanket round a man,
the dirty protest, Thatcher stance,
that gave a new and startling glance
at just how deep a people's fury goes.
And God knows each single mother's son
was sick of hunger,
all those younger faces became stripped and old
eyes shrunk back and foreheads cold & bold
with skin that's limp and paper thin,
barely separating blood and bone from stone.

And some did say ‘enough is now enough'
and others said that ‘never, never, never will a martyr die,
he'll smile upon us long from mural's wall.'
And others said ‘what nation's this?
we're abandoned on our own—
all this for clothes to warm some dying bones.'
And some said ‘that's a traitor's talk'
and others bowed their heads and thought that they
would hate to go that way.

Then Bobby Sands was dead
and there was banging on the bin lids on the Falls
echoed through to Shankill gospel halls.
And there was trouble on the street that night
and black flags started hanging while
people started ganging up,
black flags marking out the borders of belonging
the thin black barricade
that's been around for thirty years
and stayed a fragile point up till today and cries
of how ten mothers' sons all starved and died
when all they ate was hope and pride
...

I

When I was a child,
I learnt to lie.

When I was a child
my parents said that sometimes,
lives are protected
by an undetected
light lie of
deception

When I was a child,
I learnt to lie.

Now, I am more than twenty five
and I'm alive
because I've lied
and I am lying still.

Sometimes,
it's the only way of living.



II

When I was a child
I learnt that I could stay alive
by obeying certain
rules:

let your anger cool before you
blossom bruises on your brother's shoulder;

always show your manners at the table;

always keep the rules and never question;

never mention certain things to certain people;

never doubt the reasons behind
legitimate aggression;

if you compromise or humanise
you must still even out the score;

and never open up the door.
Never open up the door.
Never, never, never open up the blasted door.

When I was a child,
I learnt that I could stay alive
by obeying certain rules.
Never open up the door.



III

When I was a child,
I learnt to count to five
one, two, three, four, five.
but these days, I've been counting lives, so I count

one life
one life
one life
one life
one life

because each time
is the first time
that that life
has been taken.

Legitimate Target
has sixteen letters
and one
long
abominable
space
between
two
dehumanising
words.
...

It is both a dignity and
a difficulty
to live between these
names,

perceiving politics
in the syntax of
the state.

And at the end of the day,
the reality is
that whether we
change
or whether we stay
the same

these questions will
remain.

Who are we
to be
with one
another?

and

How are we
to be
with one
another?

and

What to do
with all those memories
of all those funerals?

and

What about those present
whose past was blasted
far beyond their
future?

I wake.
You wake.
She wakes.
He wakes.
They wake.

We Wake
and take
this troubled beauty forward.
...