Wolf Tongue

by Barry MacSweeney

Smashing my knuckles

  with a walnut gunstock

  so I can’t pay you back.

  Drawing my claws.

  You’d better do it

  because I’m butcher bird

  lancing my foes

  on hipthorn and may.

  I’m red grouse,

  pride of the moor.

  I won’t flit

  this hole in the heather

  because you say so.

  Heaving bags of rubbish

  by moonlight, dragging

  the family cart from door to door.

  Won’t lie in duckdown

  when there is bracken & slurry.

  Wander the fellsides

  rather than be used by you.

  You’re Boss Lip

  brass in his pocket

  and a brass neck

  Titled Lord

  but I’ll tell you this:

  this is my princedom

  you’re on the wrong ground

  And this:

  I won’t lope

  I won’t fly

  I won’t run away

  this is my palace

  I know every bolt-hole

  better than the veins

  on her back

  Cock pheasant in my head

  ploughed field my cockdom

  Snipe drumming

  egging on daughters

  to mischief and vice

  Magpie sucking eggs

  until you’re broken

  begging for friends

  Furrow

  or fiend

  depending on the weather

  Wound

  you haven’t seen coming

  the birth of pain

  Mighty Leveller

  one you thought resigned

  to books

  Phantom of distress

  with blooded axe

  and a fiery role

  Shot from a Range Rover

  I will rise

  Freed from neck-chains

  walking in your door

  armed with centuries of anger

  Friend

  your wife admits

  when you’re away

  Family and animals

  in the grip

  of my cunning

  Vet

  with the secret stare

  a secret injection

  King Digger

  your burial

  first on the list

  Prince of Lollards

  with the very last libel

  in every parish

  beneath your shoes

  I will be back

  again & again

  you won’t know how to rest

  who to say to:

  Get them seen to

  Your chances

  thin.

  I have seen you

  and never forget a face.

  Had better do this:

  Lock the doors

  check the latch

  eyes on each sash

  it’s all you’ve got

  Damp the fires

  put out the light

  look in the thatch

  for a flaming brand

  Listen Pal

  Compadre

  Colleague

  Friend

  Listen Dad

  Lord

  I know thee

  you’ve had it

  Check your children

  in their pink cribs

  Watch for the tinker

  at the turn in the road

  grinding scissors

  to trim their hair

  I’ve a headful of blood

  and your daughter’s next

  Your seed has reached

  a dead end, Lord

  you’re washed up

  end of the line

  for you and your breed

  You’re a marked man, master

  Death’s drone

  at your door

  Final shudder

  final fling

  Final chant

  from the last piper

  Your future & fiefdom

  down on my dancecard.

  Flamebearer

  Torchlit smoulderer

  one with the light

  hell-raiser

  hunched under McCleod’s Table

  scorched with his own heaven

  Scald scalded

  dancing in embers

  fanning the flames

  of his own destruction

  Ranter’s furnace

  sealed & shaking

  head-bursting pricks of heat

  light like sun

  flaring

  waking from sleep’s apology

  aching for some portion of chime-talk

  beautiful commerce

  she traded in

  Ranter

  burning his boats

  blowing his bridges

  oil from the buttress

  poured on himself

  ringing his own bell

  Quasimodo

  tracing her melody

  in the flight of birds

  the misery

  of an embrace

  pity of the little creatures

  inside her head

  lurking behind the lace of memory

  Lauding: King Fool

  black horehound crown

  axe and hammer

  raised to a skull

  hammering home

  Ranter’s brand:

  home from the war

  of loving her badly

  back on my own ground

  blade in your heart

  Albion ablaze with winking stars

  Ranter

  flamebearer

  prince with a torch-song

  five years on the edge

  lip of despair

  one on the brink

  drink to drink

  sting to the enemy

  smoothing his honey

  toast of the tribe

  drinking:

  Lord, Loverde

  I cupped the roses

  in her kitchen garden

  scented sweetness

  from the dark of a lair

  heat from her body

  set me alight, Lord

  I was a match

  for her flair

  she was kindling, Lord

  wet grass in the morning

  her body on fire

  with a singular parting

  Lord, listen

  we wriggled and writhed

  sang in the sheets

  my blade in a tree

  moving quickly taught us

  the art of flight, Lord

  climbing mountains

  to the heart of her glare

  an explosion of wills

  a beating of fists

  Writing

  smell of stock

  I was invaded

  God protect me

  where I stand

  *

  I saw her dandle

  with a man and his money

  twined together

  beneath the mustard moon

  night-scented she was

  hungry and broken

  her life a fuse

  of fragile devices

  Lord I was in her

  and it came to nothing

  she dawdled and dandled

  climbed through his hair

  heart-crushing joy

  forlorn estrangement

  all that was spoken

  all that was broke

  Lord I was beneath her

  and it made no difference

  glinting pendilae

  hems to be kissed

  Ranter’s lip-fever

  the touch of a ring

  buckled angel

  under northern storms

  Lord, I was abased

  abashed by her beauty

  bending any vow

  in the heat of a moment

  sleeping like strangers

  scorched by sin

&n
bsp; addorsed and affronted

  begging for more

  pit of the stomach, Lord

  shaft and trench

  freed from its lock

  the flywheel whirred

  Listen Prince:

  she walked her bitches

  all over the meadow

  eight fingers

  two thumbs

  on every hound

  howling and growling

  harrows and heel-ploughs

  breaking the back

  of land he loved

  *

  suivante she was

  privy perle withouten spot

  doucement duckdown

  they bedded in

  Suibhne stroking

  his dream of Siobhan

  unhooking her bra-clasp

  in several great cities

  and one Quaker town

  Ranter the peacock

  armed with strut

  *

  Ranter’s bride

  bird in a cage

  banging the feastshelf

  Seething:

  Then you wore me out.

  Stone at the end of

  an accusing finger,

  flinched at your fist.

  Salt-block

  rasped by a tongue.

  Your tongue,

  prince of my dithering.

  Now I’m a tree,

  my own patient roots.

  Freed from you,

  thin in the wind.

  Dockleaves dancing

  in the dawn

  and autumn rain.

  A stone alone.

  Wind in a tree

  that made me

  what I am: mad

  and stone-lonely.

  Scorched by August

  in that foreign place.

  December excluded

  from the songs.

  When bilberries darken

  you’ll remember me,

  blinded staring into

  your labradorite eyes.

  You the bloody warrior.

  Helmet-crusher raised aloft.

  Foulmouthed blade-breaker

  on freezing fells.

  You prince of pipers,

  pride of Sparty Lea.

  My fingers brushed

  your closing lids.

  When I kissed you

  the dark was a torment.

  You fetched me

  surges, deep like a sea.

  Sad I was, sad: mad

  like a dog. Bitch I was

  away from the pack, and

  you my discreet lover.

  My body the smoke

  of hill chimneys.

  I’m whirring

  like a flywheel

  and you won’t

  know me. A wafer

  your rivers

  flaked clean.

  You can lap against

  my absence forever,

  beat your wings

  in the dark of my leaving.

  Alone on a crag

  when you joy to the peewit,

  remember I left you,

  unhinged my dandling hand.

  When you crouch alone

  in the pillars of grass

  broken by moonlight,

  remember, rabbit-catcher,

  the curse of anger

  is in you. The shame

  of fury and a harrowing

  lust for control.

  I wouldn’t go with you

  down that road. Now

  we are both alone

  by rivers we love.

  You the prince

  of beck and burn.

  I watch the Thames

  in my own quiet way.

  Streams like blades,

  slow tides and times.

  We are all flowing

  to a wider place.

  I wandered and wandered,

  wouldn’t settle

  in a place that suits.

  Loved, then not for long.

  When you glow in flames

  of distant fires, remember

  I loved you in hound’s clothing.

  Remember my prayers.

  Please remember

  I wanted above

  all things courtesy.

  In this you failed,

  flailed me with passion

  like grand punishment.

  Whip of your love

  became my traces.

  You, jerky songbird

  in hound’s clothing.

  Featherpeltstricken

  moaning cloakclasp poems

  even when I lay gladly

  in your northern arms.

  Haste is foreign to me.

  I prefer to be slow.

  Born under family blows

  you will always wear

  the warrior’s ring, long

  for the long cry

  and your blade buried

  and your heart on fire

  with unpunished blame.

  For you the wounds are real.

  Ranter, love, broken prince

  crowned with bracken by

  bullies just like you.

  Robed in the crystal water

  of streams to ease your back

  broken by loping, where I

  forever pressed surely

  loving to calm you

  in the time of our trial.

  See my scallop shell

  and wild hermit shoes.

  I lift my hem lightly.

  Finnbar’s Lament

  God forgive me

  least of souls

  forgive my face

  its crookedness

  my heart sceptical

  searching for justice

  in unexpected places

  my scoffing tongue

  whose flinting

  drove her away.

  For offences

  in every princedom

  let me offer this:

  Persistently drive me

  down every lane

  in which I spoke asides.

  Hammer home my rudeness

  strike my head

  confirming my badness

  making most

  of my humiliation. Then shall I

  thoroughly be bent

  distraught in sorriness

  and woe

  my unforgivable compleynt.

  My heart alone an instrument of shame.

  Let go Siobhan

  to wander back with friends.

  I will write for you without persuasion:

  I did all this and more. I was an animal

  unleashed on souls

  more used to prayer and prattle

  in the joyful dawns of breakfasting.

  Break my blade. I will dance on its fragments

  in any public place

  you care to name. I will hop

  till blood comes.

  Then I’ll write with fingers dipped:

  your punishment is light enough

  for all the mischief

  Finnbar’s done.

  I have no slaves but sell the dogs.

  I will take you to the kennels

  and to the cloakclasp jar.

  To the furnished nursery

  but there are no babies there.

  Take all the splendid plaids

  in which Finnbar once held sway:

  that’s not a theft

  to bother me, stripped as I am

  of delight & power.

  Take this small but neatly-written

  list of friends. For minor gifts

  and several brief encouragements

  they will help compile

  an index of my crimes.

  They don’t betray. I am happy for their

  willing talk to be unweaved

  by men bereft

  of knowledge

  inside locked rooms.

  I accept your governing.

  Your tutelage

  once made me

  gather baron clans

>   prepared for war.

  But I accept it now.

  Loot my sties. Prod each pig

  to market or the spit.

  I’m done with feasting.

  *

  This is the chamber where it all came true.

  Strip the covers and sell the bed,

  throne of our beginning.

  Throne of love’s dark days.

  This is where she was, Lord,

  and I was master.

  We drank from costrels

  full-brimmed with wine.

  We never had the ring of care

  beneath each eye.

  She always had her things to do

  and I had mine.

  Listen, master of my punishment

  I am surliness defined.

  I have never been one

  to do the knuckling-down.

  My native tongue delighted

  in the salty blow

  of oceans in which

  I splashed and sang.

  I was a redshank lad