A BELFAST TRILOGY

“Spirit of the Lagan”

(Written as part of  Collaborative Exhibition

Engine Room Gallery, Belfast November 2014/2015)

BELFAST ROSE

Down behind the City Hall

Belfast Rose slides into the snow

Snowflakes fall on her dark hair

Somewhere, bells ring on the midnight air

See the crimson petals grow

Two shadows rise and flit and fall

Heave her body up and over the wall

Pause, until they hear it land;

The dullest thud; they float on air,

Retiring to the land of Harp and Hand.

We are left with this shell:

And garlands for her bare

Alabaster cheek and breast,

Garlands of cherry-red wreath her head:

Such acts of love we once thought rare

And now she is dead, dead, dead…

The sound of her voice, the laughter,

The coolness of her hand, her breath,

All gone: she is gone, gone, gone…

(remembering the murdered and disappeared women)

_________________________________________

A LAGAN SONG

My Lagan My Love, You Always Were:

The Stone in my Boot;

The Burr on my Sleeve; The Cheese to my Chalk;

My Bow and my Arrow; my Sling and my Shot;

My Sword and my Shield; the Gleam in my Eye;

The Child in my Womb; the Hope in my Heart.

My Lagan My Love, You Know That You Are:

The Child of my Manger;

The Thud in my Blood; The Ice in my Heart;

The Love that’s Caught in the Cage of the Weir;

The Knock on the Door; the Crack in my Cup;

Flowing down to the Sea, through Bog and Barbed Wire.

My Lagan, My Love, You Ever Will Be:

The Warmth in my Toast;

The Lace in my Shoe; the Wind in my Sail;

My Sour and my Sweet; My Hare and my Hound;

The Bone to my Marrow; the Pea in my Pod;

the Song in my Heart;  the Sun on my Snow.

_________________________________________

THE UNALTERABLE

A bird settles on Krupps’ progeny;

a fox trots daintily among the tin cans; elongated

post-industrial shadows tremble, if only a little;

plastic bags scat about on the wind;

a rat hurries along the waste-land run.

Impervious to gales blowing across the water

two cloud-topped towers stand over the people of Belfast:

here, one is moved to raise his eyes;

there, another averts his gaze.

Graceful, these are not;

(they are not meant to be)

they are plain and straight,

engineered and irrevocable

as rock: and ignorant

of time’s corrosive cancer; simplified

by fistfuls of wind-blasted ice

thrown down from Cavehill.

Not noticing,

the savagery of slaves’ calves grown shank-thin,

never itching to toe-tap,

never dreaming

to dance in moonlight, no, no, no,

the feet booted and planted in concrete;

half sustained by 

thin soup warmed in

Belfast Lough.

Endurance is in their natures,

begat and birthed with them;

endurance is the truth of us.

TRILOGY

‘A LAGAN SONG’ –  READ BY ZOE REID

‘THE UNALTERABLE’  READ BY JOHN DUNLOP

‘BELFAST ROSE’ READ BY ZOE REID

Book and Exhibition Launch, Lagan Song, Engine Room Gallery,  Belfast, 6 November 2014

Guest, Nichola Mallon, Lord Mayor of Belfast

Director, Mr Cliff Brooke, Engine Room Gallery

Stella Burnside, John Dunlop, Marie D’Arcy, Zoe Reid, John Burnside, Leslie Nichol