Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Irish Pages LTD
North of NowhereAuthor(s): Gary AllenSource: Irish Pages, Vol. 2, No. 2, The Earth Issue (Autumn/Winter, 2004), pp. 96-97Published by: Irish Pages LTDStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30022025 .
Accessed: 16/06/2014 09:17
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Irish Pages LTD is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish Pages.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 185.44.78.129 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:17:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
IRISH PAGES
where Moses waits a long beard of bullrushes -
a man from Monaghan come upcountry having set Dublin in flames.
See how she shines in the water a child become gold voices singing free of poverty bare feet slapping stone.
NORTH OF NOWHERE
These are cows that move dumbly across the gorse and thistles,
but they could be human
alive in their own stream of piss their inattention to what surrounds them:
in that shed over there I stretched gut ten hours in salted water
hands ballooning - the bloated maggoty carcass of one who got too close to the river,
the child who left us to swim the floods.
These beasts are giant munching the car-lights on the motorway striding the black slated roofs of the housing estate.
Where do cows go to sleep at night mister? my ma says standing in fields
have you ever seen a bull's balls,
96
This content downloaded from 185.44.78.129 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:17:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
IRISH PAGES
or a pit-bull snapping a herd into the barbed-wire entanglements round the substation, or the great staring eye before the bolt is shot?
I stand outside, covered in shit and blood and like a fool I pray.
What are cows used for?
Handbags, belts, shoes -
and sometimes, like humans, they look at the moon.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD
You talk of death, but we have pulled skeletons by the cart-load:
so many bones, the century groans under them.
Take this man here,
digging a shallow grave in the forest
no less precise in his terror, or is he resigned,
numb from blows, submersions in a bathroom of winter water-light
and what priest is it that can come here to give the last rites?
as if God can find any grace here.
It is only another birth gone wrong, carried away sublimely
97
This content downloaded from 185.44.78.129 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:17:19 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
