Iona
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by Mary Palmer
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SAMPLES
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Preacher
wild hair, grey
to the shoulder
a wolf, smalt eyes burning
with a clear flame
this Celt warrior
smoulders into song
in Relig Oran’s dolman chapel
commands the flow of voices
over stone
murmurings, that echo –
an ocean flooding in
so light strikes the silver cross
beneath a graven lintel
as solstice sun
skeletons seated in an ancient barrow:
tongues of fire could descend –
the howl of grief, ‘I want him back!’
tinder dry bones
and this Cave of Death
rattle with dancing
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Black Madonna
St Michael’s Chapel
Ebony,
Ebony,
tiger lilies
should garland you
their petals, like tongues of fire
blazing in the slave-dark.
Ebony,
candles gutter
and your skin gleams
as if stained by tears
yet, soul quiet,
a light
flickers
in your downcast eyes,
a light we cannot violate.
Ebony,
Madonna,
dragon buds unleashing flame,
I halo you
and wreath your son,
newborn to dung and dirt.
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Pasture of the Geese
I have crawled on beaches,
hands sticky with blood and tar
clambered rocks where
the guillemot draggles
oil-slicked wings.
No more angel than a shag,
a junkie tossed to the gulls,
I gobbled up my nightmare
and retched on the dark.
Now, I treasure-trail barefoot,
squat on dunes soft as breasts
where water-flags surge
and lambs shudder the ewe.
Here, in this thin place,
I choose to dream.
Milk-blue terns
light
on water
like pebbles skim my longing –
for the wild goose
whose wings, alone,
can shelter.
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