Draíocht
By J.C. Dickson (@jakedicksonnn)
Thick wads of seaweed clog old tangled nets,
Cast to black waves by weary fishermen
On the cusp of death, clad in stale insobriety,
Their humility a sentiment of their piety.
Do they know the sea claims no God?
It just ravages the cold, forsaken isle,
A rocky purgatory peppered with graves
Dug and filled by boist’rous waves.
Fall upside down into the ground,
Pack your pipe with lotus blue,
Down the bottle, stagger to bed,
Slumber’s a-coming, lie your head.
Douse the candle with dregs of wine,
Tumble hazily towards the island,
Wait for the sirenic whispering voice
Of the Pearl o’ Beauty’s soft rejoice.
O, sweet Fand! What crass allure lies within?
In what fantastical world do I find myself?
Never has one espied such an angelic beast,
But she couldn’t be a god in the eyes of a deist,
For her eyes gleamed mean with an eerie gall.
Donned in watery silk with silvery hair,
Gliding near with spectral grace, she said,
‘Fear not my dear, you’re not yet dead.’
Betwixt the trees, sprites and faeries giggle,
Chucking bright-red berries at my head,
Their wings flit like frenzied leaves
To steal my sanity like vexatious thieves.
‘Don’t swat them away, my dear,
They’ll surely rip you to shreds’.
Nary pixie nor fae would be fazed,
By morn, their insolence will be effaced.
O, how sweet music fills my ringing ears,
Such euphonious ditties erupt from her mouth,
A lone succubus plucking her lyre,
Sitting astraddle a kelpie surely on fire.
On the cliffs of the isle, I slip into stupor,
Perhaps the jump will yank me from slumber.
Eyes shut, clothes off, into the sea I leap,
Never before have I fallen so deep.
The only escape remains the raging waves,
Whence the son of the sea rises forth,
Head to toe in tawny bladderwrack,
Hear his voice fall ‘gainst the clarsach.
That handsome rogue could bewitch
Any fair maiden who doth vie for his love.
Gurgling and spurting salty foam,
He beckons me t’ward to his briny home.
I bang my head against the tattered mattress,
Itching to escape this mystical dream,
Yet you remain still, fiercely asleep,
Tis’ far too late to be counting sheep,
For we’ll never get off this forsaken isle,
Sunken deep between the swelling waves.
Darling if I could then I’d ask you right here,
‘Be mine forever’, but for me, you won’t stay near.
Lo, my dear, our wakening is nigh!
Did my amorous perturbations make you stir?
Or did you maybe share the lucid visions
Begot from some hallucinogenic collisions?
Eclectic minds ne’er wander this far,
For the mind shall purge all fabrication,
Borders between the real and spurious
Shan’t dare pester the incurious.
Old Celtic curses still haunt this house,
The death of our love, and thence of my heart,
Still bedevils me like a shackled banshee
Chained to the leg of our broken settee.
I search for a light, deep inside your soul,
Alas, for those eyes shall never ‘gain glitter.
Now we raise to our elbows, about to near freeze,
In that four-poster bed we made from old trees.
Darling, I’ll die for you tomorrow.
But for now, let me sleep full of sorrow.
J.C. Dickson is an endeavouring writer and poet from Belfast. His poetry, often fuelled by late-night meditation, is a somewhat grotesque fusion of gritty realism and ruinous love, infused with the laments of post-conflict Northern Ireland.
