A light stroke across the windy pane
in the parlour
you can't stir
cedar wainscote
white as the blank sheet of a letter
a rattle like all in a tremble

wind cries from the orchard
such a hoo-hoo-o-o-high
LET ME, LET, LET, LET ME IN
something or another slips in
close by your leg
as if it belongs

you might see him stretch his neck
to the ceiling
out of the cravat, throat cut across

People are plaguy sharp, you wouldn't want
to sleep 'beyant at Ballyfermot'
it's a vile house the tiled house
and ready to tumble down

Under all this smoke
there smoulders a little spark of truth

The mansion skulks, right for retreat
down an avenue of elms
a bat flits over the court-yard
Mr Mordaunt might take his place
out of night
a lord of hemlock and nettles

nothing but a hand laid on the sill
tap tap
pressed against glass, feel for a gap
rap rap

a white pudgy finger through the auger-hole
first the tip,
then two joints

a kind of gentle squeeze, a brushing

to lay an impression in dust

a white puffy hand

the ghost of a hand, and no more

nor was it separate (the body hides)

Your TYLED HOUSE quivers from base to cornice
always the back parlour
door and pane
those pranks remember, an old story
from swag-flaunted boughs to window-stone
ay, ay, indisputably

rip, rap

the palm of a hand rubs briskly
the snow, bitter eddies
to open a peep-hole
white sliding curtain

Zekiel Irons lips to the glass
clerk of Chapelizod
gestures

what the devil, sir, do you mean?

he greets you with a message
he'd have you understand he never did it

Copyright © Gavin Selerie, 2004.