THE HANDSTAND

MARCH 2003

TAKE AWAY

Bursting, blonde plastic, blood red, up out of blackish tarmac like an exotic flower seeded by accident, all light then and glass and small figures uniformed within, the same tables, hats, motions, as if mechanical from the soul out, the blatant sign as if in heaven a cipher, a sacred letter, leg-splayed, jaundiced arcana, nothing more to be said, standing, a defiant algebraic demand, for itself, equations of speed, delivery, uniformity; slowing, slowing, the gleaming vehicles, inside, the clamourous children, begging at the car glass, making the necessary noises the next, their shadows barred a patch of light, a Morris tale of paradise on earth, such beneficence, such haste, the fried meat smells lulled in a sauce of thudding music, the rhythm of someone beating someone else, thudda-thudda-thud, packages of yellow-streaked-red handed through the windows sacramental and still, however quietly, obscene; too much, too gross, this obese fascination with quickness, juice on the lips trickling, fingers greasy, the crackle of wrapping paper and revealed, suddenly, unexpectedly (as if) this tame and clinical dissertation on a cheeseburger, or some other named mighty, the children see the word and translate it, as we do, to mean great or powerful, sludge of every day beating on the shoulders of us all, what is this pauper’s handout but an expensive excuse; odour of fat and loneliness, always a single figure hugs a table, as if hired to be there, to state, like an emphatic number, a hieroglyph, an earthed absolute, but mystical and out of translation’s grasp (for now) something unspeakable, sad and sly; luminescent side-chapel to the shopping cathedral where slow sacrifice of processed meat rests on our tongues, washed with the blood of gaseous brown caffeine syrup, never so easily appeased at altar-rail, half-eaten this and that-burger crouching quietly on plastic tables – and some tables are spotted mushrooms, and one table is a duck – and who will wipe this clean, the red sauce and the barbecue, the bite-distressed half buns of bread: who is able?

THE WATCHERS

Three young girls lean on a fence

Eye the distance that has no end,

Each thin and unfinished,

A sketch of herself –

Heat draws up the scent of tar,

A good weather day in sodden bad,

But the roadway’s hard with traffic

And too sudden, so they stay –

The smallest tries to climb

To the head-height of the tallest girl,

The sailing wind of our hot car

Throws out their hair –

The road is between them

And the indescribable miles

A threshold of skippy pebbles

Every car tyre flicks and rolls –

One is climbing to be taller than herself:

The weather’s humming from

The West, where rain and bombs

Are born:

And when we’re long gone,

The first plump drops will make them squint,

And someone will shout

Out of the brick cottage,

And they’ll go in.

*********

{This poem came out of an afternoon drive on a beautiful, sunny, country day. Innocence was there, flying past the window; meanwhile, rumours of an invasion of Iraq crawled like a virus through the various media. Suddenly, nothing was safe, and instead of enjoying the drive, we seemed to be fleeing something

X-FILE

“If you are touching, you are also being touched:. . . .”

Medbh McGuckian: The Colony Room.            

In a Dublin restaurant,

Self-service, hot light,

A bald man like any other

Said he fixed small countries.

He said this like you would

Say: I work in a garage –

That was what he did,

In his grey raincoat he looked

Like a businessman

Caught between flights,

His accent polite Mid-West

Campus American.

He was hungry, we both

Were: comparing the prices

Of café breakfasts here

And in Belfast, started it.

He knew that city,

He mentioned a good hotel;

Balancing a full tray while

Holding a briefcase isn’t easy.

Do you think we need

Fixing? I said. You’d know better

Than me, he answered.

********

BEE-LINES

I will arise and shave my head

And go to RTE

A black polo-neck don there

And make-up for TV –

An accent I will build there

With un-Irish inflections made

Feeling the buzz of my relevance

‘Til the studio lights fade.

  ********

NO WAR THEN

To The Lighthouse lay on a pillow

Big enough for both of us.

The curtained room was warm, quiet –

We made love here. No war, then

The radio was a long way off,

A voice in another part of the house.

A gasometer gloomed on the garden,

Blood-rust coloured; we were near

The sea, and we had a few friends,

Innocent as dust, as leaves falling –

We know better now. Too grown for

Our own good, war is everywhere.

These mad days I think (forgive me)

That it could be no possible sin now

To feel your breath in my breath

In such a warm, quiet room...

FRED JOHNSTON©March 2003