Quarter
we found Red Hand Commando
masks and combat uniforms
laid neatly in the attic
along with some bomb-making
literature and a token
cache of weeping gelignite
like their men had just gone off
to mutilate their hand-guns
with shipyard angle-grinders
and we had taken them at
their word for what it is worth
which is to say that peace comes
when there is no one left to
kill and words are the measure
of what has been delivered
whether in a language no
longer intelligible
or past all understanding
as we irresistibly
are drawn to the attic light
to contemplate the primrose
yellow decommissioned cranes
of the Titanic Quarter
under an iceberg blue sky
Onset
I push open the green door
to be taken aback by
the ku-klux of a cocked shot
gun echoing from the wings
deserted as it was night
I could not see my way to
whatever plot I’d stumbled
into or what sudden stage
I stood upon the pages
of the stuff I was to read
dissolving before my eyes
like a sackcloth face that burns
on a burning dummy’s head
whose bright upholstered body
writhes in the flames of its own
making and the whole theatre
now that the lights have come on
is waiting for me to speak
but I have brought the wrong book
try as I might not to read
the writing on all the walls
commissioned by holstered guns
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