My Grief With Mr. Gormley’s Cloud Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Tentatively I walk
in a cloud

in a big glass
see-through box

blinded by the white
light

with all the other humans who
like you

stripped
of sight

touch the sides
of their glass confides

journeying
inch by inch

throwing themselves
outside their skins

searching for
that extra sense

within them
selves

to guide them
through to...

trembling like rats
in a laboratory box

an extra ear
grafted onto our backs


us now
mere mice.

Children flee in glee
run magically through

the mist & vapours
unafraid of unseen dimensions.

Humans
(alien to themselves)

bump into
other humans who

apologise
or grab hold of you

thinking you are
someone you are...not.

An unknown woman
clings strangely to my skin

her perfume calls me
by an unknown name

tells me she is “...frightened
so... frightened...”

& then is
lost again.

I walk alone
through this Kingdom

of the Blind
walking through cloud

not knowing
that you too

(my love to be)

walked through
its magic

missing one another
by an inch perhaps

a touch of
hand maybe

(was that looming Yeti
really you?)

Love delayed
by moments & months!

Ah, Mr. Gormley
if only

your installation
could have given me

my love
to be

even earlier

conjured her
up out of this

Cloud of Unknowing

I would have been so
impressed

believing in Art
for heart’s sake

but it was not to be!

And I had to wait
(oh alas poor me!)

for Summer & Stratford
to produce her

materialise
her.

Your installed cloud
was I admit...close

close but
not

touching!

But that’s alright
I can forgive you now.