CANTO XVIII

The waters of County Limerick
are falling on the Maigue,
the Deel, and the Feale,
tributaries pissed,
stuffed with pints,
over the limit,
and every time the river tries to drink,
to swallow,
the water spills over the rim,
blown over on to saturated ground.

Bring back the saints to the walls,
conjure up hints of faces
and moving statues.
Call out the pagan gods from hiding.
Save us from the ghosts of bog,
grow sphagnum moss,
as if Viagra-ed into to a proud penis,
born from the pricks
who developed your water plains.

If you like I’ll become an Unbeliever.
The gods of the believers have led us
into this flood,
and we are encased in mud,
quicksand, sucked down to vortex,
disappearing up our own arsehole,
wholly worshipping the promises
written on the proclamation
pinned to the back door of the GPO.

In the name of the dead generations,
we, the people of Ireland,
will take our rightful place
among the accumulations
of the globalised marketplace…

(to be continued)