CANTO XXXII (starts here)

Sleep intervened,
weaved its way with him,
he never opened a page,
never know the will of the ALMIGHTY.

If he was exposed to the mind of the creator,
right now he’d have lost the vestige of trust,
almighty confused, vulnerable and decayed,
facing up to ruin,
a hummingbird with no reverse gear,
a cluster of disabilities,
unfit to receive entreaties,
the ALMIGHTY was on its last legs.

Without the discovery of honesty in Ireland,
the ALMIGHTY was so thirsty
he was a bundle of mirages,
visions of home,
imaginations of despair,
there was no firm ground under his seat,
surrounded by the knitting,
and minor deities casting lots.

The presences of ETERNITY
were reduced to gambling
on the outcome of the quest. 
Second by second,
they lost another semblance of personality,
it was time anticlockwise, 
the drift to incoherence.

A little child turned to her father
"Dada, can I please watch the television?
Dadd, please, please, please,
please may I watch some television
please Dada?"

"You may" said the lazy man.

"Hurray", she took his thumb
and pulled it towards the other room,
dropped a tea-towel on the tiles of the kitchen floor
and shuffled across the cold into the nursery. 
"Come-on Daddy."

She occupied the armrest of a cream sofa:
"who’s on the menu today, Dada."

The dressing-gown wanted to hear the news on the radio,
a vacant and a sleepy mind
not yet woken with rhyme
- here was a man wrestling with consequences,
up to his waist in the flood of bishops
swimming for their lives,
the Dubhai default by Bertie Ahern,
confessions by Brian Cowen.

He heard Martin ask
whether there was a phedophile ring
in his parishes,
funny handshakes.
It was as if you could turn in no direction
without transubstantiation,
such was the transfiguration
of abominating proportions.

The father of the child needed tea
and the internet.
his past stripped naked,
the flesh of his heroes
mortified and betrayed,
it was as if he’d become an old woman re-reft,
out of wool,
all trust bust.
News or booze,
bulletins to distract
the dreams he used to have
in front of the Stations of the Cross,
quicksand now.

The hope with which he crossed the floor with Dev,
and took control of the reins of power,
and wrote the Constitution
that balanced Church and State
in a web of deference,
reverence by association with purple..

All those days painted black now,
this was the last Sunday morning
before the start of the Afterlife:
only the unlikely discovery of the impossible dream
lay between this male
and trees whose leaves would never return. 

(TO BE CONTINUED)