Issue 9: March 2005
Ian Duhig | Annie Freud | Mark Granier | Heather Holden | John Stammers | Matthew Sweeney
IAN DUHIG
A Dream of Wearing String Vests Forever
For Brendan Kennelly
For everything that lives
Is holy. For a string vest
Does more than only connect;
Embodying kinship networks,
It is my ancestral tartan,
— 'The Breakfasting Duhig' —
Light as an aura massage
Or love's gappy language.
An ontological conundrum:
Nothingness-patched being!
What is the length of a piece?
To what lengths will it go?
Only so far; it can't flatter.
But a must in emigrants' kit:
Though born in Antarctica,
It's as at home in Africa.
And if a gaffe at the opera,
It's a good sign in hosts,
Of ease with their guests.
It grows like the universe,
Constantly, in every direction;
A dreamcatcher however stretched
Holding its integrity and warmth.
Dad's gift. To get the hang of it.
The Fiddle Teacher
For G.N.
When Padriag played one lullaby,
The big old door key in his teeth,
He'd stroke it on his fiddle's bridge
To raise a teething baby's cry.
She puts new keys between their teeth
And cuts them on the great and gone;
She breaks the silences they clutch
To wake the fiddlers underneath.
From The Lammas Hireling (Picador, 2003)
Also available from Amazon.co.uk:
Nominies (Bloodaxe, 1998)
The Mersey Goldfish (Bloodaxe, 1995)
The Bradford Count (Bloodaxe, 1991)