The Naked Surgeon Poem by Michael Hartnett

1

The sky is alone tonight —
the moon and stars
seek some presence
in the firm quiet, in the hard lack.
A meteor falls in the empty dark.
Someone is absent, the universe is bare
listen, God, are you there?

Sand silts the world —
dockleaves in the yard,
broken teeth eat sadness
in the hayless barn.
Silence knocks on men's doors
and silence answers it —
but music is heard in space.

Lichen eats the stone,
old arrogance eats peace:
female salt eats being,
angry rust eats blood.
Beetle and seal are dead,
poisoned children in lakes —
but music is heard in space.

Weak whistle-music moves
beyond Orion's Belt,
silk threads in a cave
float in the dark.
Some player in the solitude
with a hopeful song
but destruction still goes on.

Lard made from whales,
coats from the seals' fur —
shaving brush from badger hair,
burnt chicks are henfood.
God's lovely creatures last
though we eat them, trout and lamb —
there's a use for the whistler's tune.

I saw a nest ablaze,
living wood sawdust.
I saw a bird on fire
fall soundless from the air.
I saw the ancient ramparts downed
and silence in the plover field.
I saw the killer's belly feed.

A tongue hangs on a tree,
the magpies' might is right:
a noise of glossy black and white.
I heard their loud artillery.
My ears are withered leaves
from their cacophony,
the discord shuts God's eyes.
But a new musician plays
and music's heard in space.



2

Listen, father, wait a while —
stay alive with me until
the universe's gown,
once as fresh as cabbage-heart,
is clean again.
Do you remember mothers' milk
like pigeons' milk that feeds the flock?
It will pour again — wait on.

I saw it last night
in the northern sky
whiter than any blood
dripped from the moon's pap
and every parched grave opened up
and the dough of milk and earth
made a bread forever fresh.

Listen, father, listen close —
though the sky's a tambourine
danced on by an iron fool
there's harmony beyond his noise.
Take time and slow your pace —
the dark drink waits for you
and strange music out in space.

Did you see them last night,
night's-eyes brilliant bright
in the black grass
and dandelions en masse,
guineas on velvet once
on an old god's shoulders
dead since the ancient magic passed?

Remember the age of the seed,
kingdom of creatures, power of air?
(Man was not alone,
man and his household.)
Waterfall tumbling from eldertree,
foam on pools like feather capes?
Remember pollen from grasses' ears?

Listen, father, cry no tear
for evil seed, for history's débris,
for the cold eternal stones,
ruined towers, groves of graves.
Listen: a bullfinch sings sweetly
(musical anvil in forge)
his harmony's all history.

So, my father, wait a while.
There's no music after dying,
no inkling of a human sigh —
just worlds falling into suns.
Earth will be the brightest bride,
star-necklets on her gown —
tinwhistles cracking tunes,
platform dances in each town.
Easy, father, wait a while.

But he did not wait.



3

One day when hope was ill
I took dangerous medicine
and hope died out and left me there,
a naked surgeon, my patient dead.
Like a hen at grips with death
my bill dumb down a well,
my plumage drowned in hate.

I turned my back on Glendarock,
walked for a drink to ease
and to obliterate
pain and fear and grief.
Rats laughed from every hedge,
bones embossed the road —
in the wind a grey crow screeched.

And then I saw the sign
that led my heart to peace —
barley like a green fire,
sheets of barley in live waves
quivering its thousand ears,
swaying flames of green
as quietly restless as a child asleep.

I knew then no victory
would go to iron axe or spear:
our mother which art on earth
conserve us safe and clean.
Gale and 'quake knock flat
all laws, all walls, all treasuries —
bindweed chokes the telegraph.

In spite of joy this peace waned
and ice ran through every vein:
all my pores were locked
and my heart turned,
a piglet on a spit, his blood steam,
panting like a dog's tongue;
the scythe taught the corn its dream.

Caterpillars squashed on the roads,
the swallow snapping back flies,
frogspawn dead in pools dried up,
the horsefly craving blood.
Prick in a vice, a man screams.
The scythe taught the poet his dream.

Barley, cover me up,
let me lie in your field.
I ask of you a green death
in the quiet milk of your stalks.
Yes, the world will survive
with neither you nor me alive.
Damn you, death, I will not then experience
the new gown of the universe —
just lie manure on immaculate earth.



4

Once a perfect standing stone,
fame engraved on my side,
my statement unambiguous,
I had nothing to hide.
But the wind of curiosity blew
with its what? and how? and why?
and blunted the edge of my dignity.

The cow of love rubbed its flank
against my sides and frost burnt:
the grain inside me shrank,
I flaked on the grass bank.
A flock of questions came seeking food
and the mother in me said 'chook, chook'
though I was dumb and mere rock.

The anxiety mason chipped at me
with his heavy hammer,
carving his own design:
his chisel gouged my grammar,
engraved no notices of mine
and every passing stray has read
words not engendered in my head.

And the lichen letters came
twisting the bare word
and their grey crust grew on me
and concealed my shape.
I lost all courage and desire,
my voice was just a shard
and all the silent world had ears.

My body like a dead elm —
dumb lightning upside-down —
inquisitor's file eroding me,
wedges wearing me out.
Before me, in my mouth,
restraints and oaths — but my poem stayed,
I still stand. But where are they?

The sky stands on my tip,
stars flow through me, inside:
I tame the sun and moon,
harnessed to my pride.
No friendships flourish in my shade,
no herb of love, no mint of help,
and I'm incapable of prayer.

Now merely a lump of stone
smashed in the field of scythes,
a circle of calves around me
staring with silly eyes.
I lonesome like a hawtree
while lichen hones me down
and a lizard-brooch sleeps.



5

In Hammer Glen there's blood
in milk and a goose complains
on an empty hearth: a cat
swells in the churn, dead and full.
A flitch of bacon hangs itself
from rafters: a tongs stands like a bull.
My first trip to the house of thatch —

home of the Slaughter Lad
who condemned his own kind —
a hammer-vision showed him how
to escape the bird-lime.
I was called, no scalpel packed.
I threw a saddle on the dark
and galloped to the threshold of his mind.

Knots of briars slid from their nests,
each poisoned eye a blackberry.
I was pelted with a shower of fruit
from a bare blackthorn tree.
I heard the chick sing in the egg,
and the straw in the mattress grew,
the raspberry cried in the jam.

But I came safe from these shades,
out of the battle-noise gales,
until I reached Slaughter Lad's
and saw there under the moon's eye
a hedgehog milking a jack snipe,
a goat beating a drum in the sky —
I had crossed over the borders of the live.

I walked into his head —
no knife, no healing herb —
helix of a snail's shell,
into a complex corridor.
Prayers of hate, echoes of roars
fell from the faceted walls —
his father's face was carved on the floor.

'I hit him hit him hit him again —
the goose drank the juice of this brain,
I made a pig-trough from his skull
and put his eyes under a hen.
One did not hatch at all,
the other shook and cracked.
Out walked a chicken's claw.

'The claw still sticks in me —
it tortures and exhausts:
contrition runs from my nose,
surgeon, give me peace.'
I refused. And left the place.
I threw away all style and craft,
my heart was ash and chaff,
my soul was a gravel bed —
a naked surgeon, and my patient dead.



6

The one-eyed monk sits,
half prays where millstones turn.
His body comes to life,
a need to travel grinds him up —
a need for pools full of hope,
a need for wells of honey and sweat,
a need for hills where torches burn.

He walks the white-flowered field
looking for a ferny place
clad in sparse purple light
(a foxglove round a bee)
to a mild meadow of sheep,
to soft dark, root of history —
peace to all who walk this way.

But only silence from his bell,
dead butterfly his manuscript
— unfinished, unrevised —
he is addicted to this trip,
this drug called pilgrimage
that kills all dignity and skill
and still's his reason to exist.

And when the monk grows weak,
clumsy, worn, aged —
no more desire to roam,
wanting his bell and page.
But he can no longer illuminate,
has lost the power to pray,
lost his interest in the everyday.

This travel's an enormous act,
a trip all have to take,
and meadows and mountains lure
all who want to escape
with coaxing honey, coaxing kiss,
'Do not search for new things,
do not search for new things'.

I will drown all my books
in that honeyed well
and play like a foal
in the brownest fern.
I will swim in the pool of hope,
I will walk till night in the bright fields.

But in the splendid dark I'll hear
wings of parchment shake and bells weep.