Darkley, Co.Armagh Poem by Paul HADFIELD

</></>Three decades past
WAs I exacting Doreen Birch
Whose innocence (a captious word)
Was wreathed
In smiles at party-time
Before the glozing weight of ease
Distilled the temperate heat of blood?

Guns tick away
As august clocks
(Tolerances widening by the hour
Thin as the innocence of Hallowe'en
Strike with irregularity
Uncertain of what day is is
They mirror all, all
They are become

Who ceased kissing
By the apple tree
In olive groves?
Where yer man weeps
For himself rocks melt
Into saxon herringbone;
Walls casually reified
To obstruct pain
Or other tendencies
Men having had, deny.