Oxmantown Comments

Through Oxmantown



I walked but saw no ancient lights

or herdsman with his fattened cattle,

no trace of those who were founders

of the place, who had to cross

the watery divide, build on soft ground.



And now new blow-ins have arrived

but there is still some vestige of the days

that time works hard to obliterate.



An old Dane haunts the parish, a renegade

from the annals whose axe

broke stones on the stony road.



That Old Dane, a mad-eyed stranger

in wolfskin and a mask, came to taste

the Liffeytide in Anna Livia's mouth

and stayed to live a second life,

perfect the art of exile, cunning, hatred.
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