Sweeney Astray is a version of the Middle Irish tale, Buile Shuibhne, in which Sweeney, king of a small kingdom in north east Ulster, is cursed by a saint and transformed into a bird at the Battle of Moira. The bulk of the story is concerned with his subse quent life of frightened wandering and…
It is not true what they say about the body: that it must be loved, that it cannot sleep through its nights alone without injury. Look at me. Look at the way the artist lies about his loneliness, painting a room where walls, floor, and ceiling converge on a door too small for me to…
Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse squeeze under the rickety door and sit, full of satisfaction, in a man’s house? You clamber towards me on your four corners— right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot. I love you for being a toad, for crawling like a Japanese wrestler and for not…
Translations is set in a hedge-school, a kind of ad hoc classical academy, in an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal. It is late August 1833, and at this time the British Army is conducting the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland. The two short extracts that follow are from the first half of Act Two. Lieutenant…
I do not believe the ancients— the constellations look like nothing at all. See how their light scatters itself across the sky, not bright enough to guide us anywhere? And the avenue of trees, leaking their dark inks, are shapes I can’t identify. The night is too inconstant, a constant injury, alchemical moonlight changing my…
On that stormy night a top branch broke off on the biggest tree in my garden. It’s still up there. Though its leaves are withered black among the green the living branches won’t let it fall.
We’d met by chance. Once. Late at night. Me, off the ship Pireus harbour, banging loudly on your door for entry, shouting in the dark: Fo Fo! Fo Fo! You in there not answering. Busy? A friend? Fo Fo! Open up. It’s only me Fo Fo. Finally the door opens a measure on its chain…
Although I am taking courses in the language of children, penguin socialization and creative writing, now, in my dotage — dotage, what a striking word — I find myself betrayed — betrayed — by what? Betrayed! That’s what it means to be human. First acceptance, then rage, then reiteration. Once dinner was always exactly at…
Robin, I watch you. You are perfect robin — except, shouldn’t you be perched on a spade handle? Robin, you watch me. Am I perfect man — except, shouldn’t I have poison in my pocket, a gun in my hand? I, too, am in my winter plumage, not unlike yours, except, the red is in…
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