SpectresSpectres walking among us stillshriek banshee warnings but nobody listens; skin and bone from the Hunger, blood from the Boyne, torn limbs from Warrenpoint, Greysteel and Enniskillen, all cast invisible shadows on the landscape, stain drumlin, lake and mountain, so at every turn horror howls at us; a parallel universe stalks us with ghastly memories of what we have done to each other. The past is not behind but here now and before us, history is bunk and can teach us nothing; our arrogance swamps the seedbed of realisation. We talk emptily of a future for our children and gnaw like dogs on the bones the Planters tossed us, suck nourishment from dead scraps like Auschwitz skeletons; but that dread nightmare was not of their making. Media maggots fatten on our corpses, and hope is like a crow's feather on the grass where we tear dark furrows from pitiful small fields. And we conjure lies about warmth and hospitality, make wings and missiles, whiskey and Irish linen; as once we built a ship that surged through the dark, sought out an iceberg, rammed it and was lost. URL: www.mourne.net/spectre.htm |
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