Liberty line 2015
A crocodile caravan coming our way
Barred before
Harried behind.
Stumbling, tumbling
Plunging, floating, sinking
Stinking boats, stalled trains, shanks’ pony
Shanks long, short, aged, infant
Powerfully pounding the tarmac
Painfully limping the dirt track
Rattling along the rail track
Tottering hopefully into the Hauptbahnhof.
Who Killed the Truth?
Who killed the truth?
I, said the Press
With my caress,
I killed the truth.
Who saw it die?
I, said the lie
Turned a blind eye,
I saw it die.
Who’ll make its shroud?
We, said the crowd.
For we can shout loud
We’ll make its shroud.
Who’ll dig its grave?
I, said the crook
With my history book
I’ll dig its grave.
Who’ll sing a psalm?
I said the gangster
I’m a jolly songster.
I’ll sing a psalm.
Who’ll be chief mourner?
I, said the meek
I’ll turn the other cheek.
Again and again and again.
All the careless of the world
Take to dancing on the grave
Of the tellers of the truth
The constant and the brave.
Two in the morning – new day soon dawning
Brutal bed yawning and I should be too
I’ve suppered the cat, read the twilight hour spam
Gargled the cocoa, hot milk and a dram.
My excuses have petered out into the night
Willie Winkie! come kiss me and tuck me up tight.
quarter past two and soon I must rise.
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies.
The bed is remorseless, the duvet reproachful,
Memories forceful of battles gone by.
Loath to set sail on the onerous odyssey
Tonight may be different – I’ll give it a try
Energies depleted – already defeated
I get some sleep now or tomorrow… I… die…
twenty to three and soon I must rise.
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies
Did I charge up the phone? Did I put out the trash?
Did I freeze up the soup? Did I stash all the cash?
My fists are too hot and my feet are too cold.
Thrust under the pillow, wrap well in a fold
Darkly down billows, the heavy hours dragging
Vertebrae sagging, the mattress is slack
My fists for my head are too lumpy, too bumpy
I lie on my front and I lie on my back.
twenty past three and soon I must rise.
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies
Insomniac infant, four decades ago
My bed tugs at anchor, the waves gently rising
Mariners yelling, all raring to go
Terra incognita beyond the horizon
Friends and relations all race down the quay
My heart in my mouth, I watch them arrive.
“I’m coming! Don’t leave me!” each well-known face pants
My mother, my father, grandparents and aunts
And uncles and cousins and schoolmates and neighbours
Each leap safe on board helps to settle my mind
Another known face we will not leave behind
Counting your kinfolk, as a way to bring sleep
May not work, but is more fun than counting your sheep.
quarter to four and soon I must rise.
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies
Down through the ages the sleep-seeking people
Spelled out the long nights with their measure till morning
The town watch, the grandfather dongs, the church steeple
At sun-up the cock’s crow or wireless brought warning
The night’s chance had fled, chased by the dread dawning.
Napoleon, Franz Kafka and Marilyn Monroe,
Tallulah Bankhead and Vincent Van Gogh
They all knew this view of the early light seeping
Whilst around them their family and neighbours lay sleeping.
five minutes past four and soon I must rise.
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies.
I try out my left side, I try out my right
Whatever will black out the thoughts of the night.
The night long and dreary, the moon my one friend
My right side, my front, my back and my left.
Hypnos gets weary, slips off round the bend
Flits to fresh dreamlands and leaves me bereft
I wrap the quilt tightly, I let it go it slack
My left side, my right side, my front and my back.
quarter to five and soon I must rise.
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies
What’s that crack at the back of the ceiling, I wonder?
Will the rain and the frost break the plaster asunder?
Round by the cornicing, bars of light curl
Become tiger teeth, silently snarl
Each time a driver roars by on the highway.
Buses and drunks, juggernauts and junk,
Dormobiles dreaming on the sulphur-lit byways.
Poor souls want to sleep! – but must stare out unblinking
While I’m turning and burning and tossing and thinking.
twenty past six and soon I must rise
tomorrow is Monday – no hope of long lies.
Earth rushes relentless to face the corona
The blush over Russia and Greece steals a-creeping
The daisies are shutting across Arizona
Whilst around me my family and neighbours lie sleeping.
The flush through fenêtres of France comes a-pouring
Around me my family and neighbours lie snoring.
quarter-past seven and now I must rise.
the radio alarm grants no chance for long lies.
Dazed in the train with the wraithlike commuters
Spring sunshine office, I face the computer
The pixels are dancing their bright morning ring
The sleep gods come prancing, buzzards on the wing
The Sandman, Dream Angus hirpling past
Willie Winkie and Hypnos following fast.
Where were you, you rascals? when I begged for ease
Don’t pester me now, leave the stage, please.
My colleagues are cheery, they laugh and they chatter
Their talk jars my eyelids, my eardrums they batter;
My head nodding forward then back with a jerk
I painfully strive to mask slumber with work.
A new Monday morning before me is yawning
Dreams drift through the disk drive, flit through the files
The working day stretches for years and for miles
Every hour packed with fear that I’ll slump into slumber.
I’ll try make-believing I’m back in my bed
Around me the gambolling sheep without number
The lumpy old pillow is under my head
It’s quarter to two, three, four, all the fives
Tomorrow is Monday, no hope of long lies
If I think I’m tucked tight, then I’ll put up a fight
And with coffee can maybe win through this grim day.
Dauntlessly scorning the dreamscapes half-forming
I’ll hope for twelve hours to hold Hypnos at bay.
Comin back ower the Border
The first ye ken ye’re hame
It isna jist the biggins
The brick gien wey tae stane
It’s nae the country roon aboot
Craggies, cleughs an corries
Stanes keeking through the shilpit yird
Less caurs an bikes an lorries
It’s nae the pastels o the North
The weather-gleam in the lift
The snell gurly teeth o the wind
The smirr in the mochie drift
It’s “wee this” “see thon” “Och, gonnae”
The “O” sae straucht an lang
The “R” rollin richly roon the braes
The speak on the rise o a sang.
Maide-Crochaidh Hanging Stick
It was not about history at all that I was thinking
When the dominie asked about the Wars of the Roses.
I was thinking the black cow would be calfing
I was looking out at the white thick machair
I was thinking about the wee calf born early in the snow.
There was no history in it at all
When I let the reckless “Tha mi duilich” fall I am sorry
out of my stupid mouth.
When first we came to this school
I would have been saved.
The stain of the Gaelic
passed swiftly amongst us then.
In the classroom, in the yard,
At work or playing at the ball.
I would not be lacking the chance
to unburden my shame.
Now there is no corner left
Where the pitiless Beurla English
is not to the fore.
The dominie’s bell will catch me still bearing
The taint of my people.
Tha mi duilich?
It will not long before I will be sorry enough
duilich gu leor, gu dearbh. Sorry enough, indeed.
(The teacher placed the hanging stick round the neck of the first child heard speaking Gaelic. That pupil listened to catch someone else out and pass on the stick. The last child wearing it at the end of the day was punished. It was reported still in use in Lewis in the 1930s. Similar strategies were used in Wales and in parts of colonial Africa.)
Mary McCabe 