Four Poems

Four Poems Fred Johnston (bio) Island Man I envy those who can take to islandsAnd walk watchfully as if on sharp stonesAnd can bear the winter shutting down, and live alone. The windows they take light fromNever adequate, the sound of storms on a latchThe scratch of salt-blow in the eye, the lifting thatch The making-do, the absence of womenOr their loveless familiarity. Self-awarenessUnder a ticking pub clock, time's crawl, the unfairness Of distance and small voices on a phone–Yet in spite of everything some kind of contentIn one's own skin, without distraction or impediment Some granted thing, a gifted solitudeTo live within the solitude and make a house of itTo know each room and where best to stand or sit And to lie down in one's own bonesTo sleep or read the ceiling, every crack and stainRough gnarly vellum, ink of gallnut mixed with rain All very well to speculate a life from here–Every island has its postcode, and a mast for a mobilePhone. There is no island man, and hasn't been for a while. [End Page 101] Dog Star One New Year's EveWe who are bachelors had nothing to doThe night was glary, starstruck and coldAnd we drove hard into the frozen boglandsTo buy poitín as a New Year's gift– We had tea in a houseWhere the doors were never locked and outsideIt was easier to travel by row-boat than wheelsWithout knowing it we were on islandsAnd someone sang an old song The road back was blackAnd the bog and hills black-on-blackPainted by a blind painter in a dark roomUp on a hill a sharp prick of lightLike a pinhole through the canvas A house of ingenious smallnessStone to the roof, corrugated sheets up thereAnd a single candle lit on a poor tableA man in his suit in his whole lengthOn the neat bed, another watching From out of a thick stillnessNot lonely but bone-strong in a night watchCut from the dark beyond candle's reachUnder the monstrous constellationsThe whimper of the Dog Star. [End Page 102] Critique of Pure Reason From here, this foxed window, a viewOf washing hanging on a lineIn a hiss of trees Two pairs of jeans, a shirt, tea-towelsIn a weak breeze; nothing of this is newRemarkable, out of place Yet all of it is, its ordinariness, its shockOf presence, its certainty. Would it be thereWithout a window to see it through? Grave Ritual It's good to visit a village cemeteryIt is, after all, the future– Something reassuring in the splash of bought flowersThe sad flag-wave of memorial cards and prayers A sense of adventure– For now you're a tourist hereFixing on the grey windows The headstones become, streaked black with old rainAs they flicker by your disinterest like a train Through a station where no one comes or goes You hear the clack and rattleOf a villageful of names, dates [End Page 103] As dumb to you as hieroglyphs, cuneiform or oghamYet you kneel to decipher what lives lie below them A ritual of sorts, a backhand paying of respects. [End Page 104] Fred Johnston Fred Johnston has published ten books of poetry and has been a frequent contributor, both as poet and as poetry reviewer, to many journals and newspapers, including Poetry Ireland Review, Southern Humanities Review, the Spectator, and the Irish Times. He is also a novelist and a musician. Copyright © 2024 Messenger Publications

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