Midnight Songs

I.

Entangling songs rise from chthonic deep,
Atwitter with the language of birds.
Incompetent druidic servant, all the wisdom
Of seven sages reduced to an Irish winecellar.
Melody impossible to grasp, sick hangover
Hovering above the morning, asleep on the barrels.

Not the black beetles in the water cask, nor the 
Holy tree languishing over the well-spring of virtues
Will tell you which way you came through 
Haunted woods or direct you past 
Looming monoliths marking the way forward.

Demons gather in the mouth of every sacred
Spring, waiting for the holy man to chase them
Away, purify the dark water, cleanse the world.
Dry old well paved with stones, still worth a turn
Or three deiseal, away from loss and sorrow,
Toward the sun. 

The soughing tide rattles rocks in its fist
Around the isle of stones, sip from the raven’s
Skull, three crows at the window, cranes
From across dry mountains, sparrows
Asleep in the aspen tree.

Understandings of many things, kingship 
Waiting on the green world, unwinding 
In a sip of dragon’s blood. Dirk twisted
In the fire, warped three times, useless
Blade, crooked iron to chase away 
The old witch of cold want
Hounding us on our path.

What charms against the dullness of our vision?
What holy well to wash away the fear, 
The angry fear soiling our footsteps?
Where the mothan, secret herb pearly-white,
To heal this lonely disease, this modern life?

II. 

How long ago now those ancient bike rides
Up into sunburned hills, along cut-over
Lettuce fields, O cinematographer’s daughter
Far away with the dead fiancee and the sad
Hooded eyes. How did we live, long ages
And ages ago, before these all-devouring
Little machines had keeping of our mind
And soul? 

What neglected switches, bypassed circuits
What faded lights replaced by LEDs, 
Bent knob on the old console set?
What arrangement of antennae?
What fatherly beatings?

Warnings from old friends, name puzzles,
Bewildered inquisitions, world in a frog pond,
Looted masterpieces, saltpeter biscuits,
All the done down failure of balanced
Checkbooks and unpaid tuition
All the misplaced coupons and fraudulent
Dinners, azaleas in flower and flags 
On the bridge.

Three A.M. teapot talking a rough tongue,
Synthetic fire snaps on magical, mechanical.
Computer illumines the new plague, vague nausea 
Evokes Ativan, dreamless and dark. Books, 
Ancient pottery, needlepoint and compact disc. 
Little poetry in this pre-dawn gloom of mourning, 
Just ragged chorale of contextless work, 
Rattle-talking lonely words.

III.

Feeble breath, empty almost-rhymes,
Powerless to regrow the stolen woods,
But meaningless feannagan may grow
Again, not words, memory embodied.
How else should an emptied land
Remember, but in empty words, 
These pale shoots seeking the light.

Shadowy light filled with obscure motion,
Burning woods, burning roof frames.
The blacksmith wizard brings Saxon gold
But takes away the children, and the wolves.
Wild dogs, wild trees, empty fields, empty houses,
Thrice emptied land, emptied word-hoard, vanished world. 

Came the cities, came the flood, sweeping us away,
Synthetic fire, midnight electronic bards
Telling stolen old mythologies, written out for pay.

Author: Duncan MacNae

Exiled Gael, scion of the Dust Bowl, dweller within Divine Grace, admirer of mountains, I have made my peace with trout and the starlings. Looking for a river and healing trees. duncanmacduncan5@gmail.com View all posts by Duncan MacNae