Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh Poems

I saw a thrush-corpse shriveling
on the woodland's scrabbly floor.
I was busy pitying it
when there came a harrying pack
of strays that set about me;
they bayed and snapped,
growling bare-toothed.
From my throat such roaring;
my every curse and foot-swing
made a bellow-war between us.
Fields of agitated cattle
augmented that wild choir.
Mice and shrewmice shrunk back
into the oakleaf brown interior
as a fox reared upward on a stony ridge,
its stance utterly rigid.
I remembered to run,
felt the four paws under me.

Translated from the Irish by Billy Ramsell
...

He can still hear it:
the glaciers rasping,
their ratcheting in the distance,
the snow-quiet.

And still he remembers
gulping unsullied freshness
to clarify his lungs,
the holy coldness blessing his skin.

He gave his heart
to that stinging brightness,
that taciturn redoubt,
that uncluttered country.

But no choice except a return
to dampness and home.
He had to turn
his back on blankness.

On so many nights
his wife asks him tentatively
to abandon the kitchen
and join her upstairs.

He loves the irregular loneliness
of each tap-drip
and it's music to him
the refrigerator's drone:

basso profundo
slow in the recital,
grinding sighs that call out
to his being's every melting element.

Translated from the Irish
...

No, I'm not so depressed
As to stay
Under the duvet
All day
That would be an exaggeration

It's just that
My eye
Gladdened at the sight of you,
Stranger,
Left behind
Last night

And this morning
There's a taste of stout
And regret
In my mouth.
...

You are not the time of birth
but of its opposite;

your rending winds,
glasses falling from our hands
at the sight of you,

pains sprouting and blooming,
within us, in silent toxicity.

You gulp existences
with your indifferent, scattered rains.

You switch off lives
with one glare
from your unnatural eye.

You excrete the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.

Have mercy on us.
...

You were driving by the sea
in the dream,
explaining your regret,
why you led us not into temptation.

And I remembered then
the biblical rain
that lashed your conscience
at the doorway of desire.

I woke with my feet
in a puddle of rainwater,
the church-bell
was counting my sorrows.
...

Returning tonight
I can taste the city's sweat
around me.

I like its sweetness.

The Present Tense bounces
recklessly off walls
in the heat of the afternoon.

I admit toxic fumes
intoxicate me.

Although you don't see
the setting sun here
in the vast expanse of sky

night plunges
between tall buildings
without warning.

but neon lights light up
the foreign corners of my heart.

Faoiseamh a gheobhadsa
on a moonlit ledge
my ear tuned to traffic's song.
...

I caught a stomach-sorrow
while traipsing October's fogs

I ate to nourish it
made a cocoon for it
laid it with slow reverence in a hollow

For fourteen nights
some cursed sleep's been after me

while I've been up feeding on darkness

Don't say a word
Don't look in my direction

There's something on my heart that can't be lifted

- I give in to wintering -

You won't see me till the buds start to blossom
...

Some days, let's admit it,
I tire
of rallying to her defence

I weary of being rooted
here by her bedside
this language
that has been violated
hoping she'll come around
watching her assiduously
wishing the life back into her again

And when I see
her rotting bones
calcifying
I know that
one day
there will be nothing left
nothing but dust, mute . . .
like myself, come to think of it.
...

149th Street and St Nicholas Avenue
It's all red and smoky blackness
in St Nick's underground,
blackness and velvety red.

Man no man
could resist this music's
pull through velveteen drapes.

Beyond it is like some urban Eden:
the tobacco-sweet air
sweetened with whisperings,

the bass's vibrations
in drones of pleasure
racing right through you,

the brush-licked cymbals,
the stiff brushes
caressing stretched skin,

the wet mouth open,
the trumpet lifted toward it.
Black and velvet red.
...