I hoist a knitted skeleton on a drip-stand in the porch.
The children are coming, a hundred and twenty last year.
Remember the white-face zombie in her communion dress
And the imp with the actual scythe and his separated father
Standing shyly out at the gate as if it were Saturday.
Later, the lights gone out in the scared terraces,
There will be no safe house for the lads in the black bin-liners.
I place a candle on the ledge of the lunette to illumine
A later myth than the carnival of Samhain -
This is no shambles, it tells me, this is Shangri La;
The Fall, the Flood, those are our fathers’ phantoms.
But a bumble-bee with long yellow stockings of pollen
Gorges on a folding passion-flower and cannot help herself
On the eve of November as the month of the dead begins.
Aidan Mathews is a poet, short story writer and playright. His recent books of poetry include Strictly No Poetry (Lilliput).
The children are coming, a hundred and twenty last year.
Remember the white-face zombie in her communion dress
And the imp with the actual scythe and his separated father
Standing shyly out at the gate as if it were Saturday.
Later, the lights gone out in the scared terraces,
There will be no safe house for the lads in the black bin-liners.
I place a candle on the ledge of the lunette to illumine
A later myth than the carnival of Samhain -
This is no shambles, it tells me, this is Shangri La;
The Fall, the Flood, those are our fathers’ phantoms.
But a bumble-bee with long yellow stockings of pollen
Gorges on a folding passion-flower and cannot help herself
On the eve of November as the month of the dead begins.
Aidan Mathews is a poet, short story writer and playright. His recent books of poetry include Strictly No Poetry (Lilliput).
