Ophelia's Nun

As I was walking the market road
by the verge of the growing stone
Carrying a winesack for my load
with my good friends Bill and Tone
I came to a turn that I'd never seen:
a forked path through a wood
and I said "It might lead to the market, men:
By its shape I think it should."

We walked up the path till the gathering trees
blocked out the blue of the day
A hound cried out through the rustling breeze
and darkness led the way
Our feet were raw as we dragged along
and our moans were too weak to be heard
Knowing by now that the road was wrong
But too tired to speak a word.

In the crack of a poplar the sunset bled
and some raingulls flapped away
Our stomachs were growling, for none was fed
in this dismal, wasted day.
But Bill pointed out as I bowed my head,
surveying my blistered toes:
"Look at that cave at the back of the wood
where the rhodedendron grows!"

We hurried along with our sack of wine
to the open mouth of the cave
and huddled inside where it seemed fine:
a sheltered night we'd have.
There were sheep and a fire; we lay down
all three for a night in the warm:
Just then a sound like boulders blown
by godwinds raised in storm.

Inside the mouth of the cave there came
A man of ten feet high
His back was as broad as the deepest dam
and he had a patch on one eye
And he came with a flock of the choicest sheep
and he ushered them in by name:
We hid back in the cavewall deep
out of sight of his fireside flame.

"It's no good hiding, you three fools,"
He growled as he spun right around:
"I've only one eye but the greatest of tools
is my nose, and I soon have you found!"
He snatched up Bill in his broadening hand
and proceeded to swallow him whole
right from the brow to the toenails at end:
right from the skin to the soul.

Tone searched his fob for a pointed blade
As he ran round the Giant’s big frame,
Skipping like a deer running down a glade
When a hunter seeks his game.
He cried, “For what you’ve done with my very best friend,
Eating him tooth and nail,
With my dagger I’ll carve you a sorry end
For my knife-throws never fail.”

And Tone threw the blade at the Giant’s throat
But the Giant he ducked and he dodged
And the knife caught the flank of a nearby goat
And there it verily lodged.
The goat gave a bleat and Giant broke down
With a fat tear from his eye:
”My goat is my prize and his life is my own:
For your vicious act you’ll die.”

And the Giant made a run with a booming growl:
The fire threw shapes on the wall,
And a shadow ate a shadow to the screech of an owl
And ate it fob and all.
And I sat still looking eyes to eye
With the creature who was licking his teeth
Wondering how I could ever defy
The big man’s towering wrath.

Just then like a bolt from the heavens above
A strategy came to mind:
I said, “I see those sheep get a lot of love
For you never leave one behind,
When you call them in here from a day on the field!
Your goats get good care too!
I must confess that I truly yield
Respect for what you do!”

The giant he winked and he blinked in a think
And he set about stroking his chin,
Then he turned up his face with his cheeks blush-pink
As he held his breath within;
Then he nodded and he smiled and sat by my side:
Beside him I looked like a doll.
And he laughed, “What you say: well it fills me with pride!
By the way, my name is Pol.”

I nodded and cheered, but still all the while
I thought of a plan of mine,
And I smiled with a smile of the craftiest guile
And said, “Would you like some wine?”
The giant said, “You are a generous soul
But of wine I don’t partake.
Still, here, pour a fill in my drinking bowl
For I’ll drink it for your sake…

…and when I’ve drunk down, from the cream to the lees,
Your good aperitif,
I’ll lift you up with the greatest of ease
And crush you in my teeth.
But first I must ask you to pour the wine
With a good and a spirited aim,
And I really must ask of this victim of mine:
What is your title and name?”

I answered, “A title have I none:
A market lad am I.
My name, for sure, it is Noh Wann
From birth till when I die.”
The Giant laughed, “Well then, Noh Wann,
Prepare to meet thy doom!”
He lifted the bowl and he tipped it down
To his mouth, as his slurps filled the room.

With a crash and smash the bowl hit the ground
And the Giant fell flat on his back,
And the roof of the cave echoed snoring sound
As I planned for a swift attack.
I lifted a log near the blazing fire
And I pulled out the knife from the goat,
And I sharpened a point to the width of a wire
And into the fire’s heat

I held it until it was white as a swan
Hissing out at a scavenging dog
And I drew it out now and at once I began
To charge fast with my crackling log
And I plunged the hot point in the unlidded eye
Of the Giant; I turned the point round
And his eye popped and bubbled and fizzed by and by
And the cave filled with clamorous sound.

The Giant sprang up with a leap like a trout
On a river in mid July,
And roared “Ye Gods!” as he scrambled about
With the log stuck in his eye.
In an instant I ran for the door of the cave
But I found to my dismay
The boulder he’d jammed in its mouth wouldn’t give
Though I pushed and pushed away.

My heart in my throat and a sweat on my brow,
And my hands in a shake and a quiver,
I turned to the Giant who neared me now
And thought to let fate deliver.
Just then, outside, I heard voices call,
“Is that you making all that noise?
Are you sure you’re alright in there, brother Pol?
Do you need any help from the boys?”


“Noh Wann has stabbed me,” Pol exclaimed,
“Noh Wann has thieved my sight!
Noh Wann has left me blind and maimed
This godforsaken night!”
“No one has stabbed you?” came a voice
outside the cave. “Well, then!
Don’t be making such a noise
So late this evening, then!”

The feet of the Giants’ friends outside
Petered into still.
The last of the fire’s embers died
And blackness swallowed all.
I could hear the Giant crawl on the ground:
I thought he was feeling for me.
But then he moaned, “Sheep, dear, make a sound,
For though I cannot see,

I’ll lead you out to the meadow at dawn,
I’ll push the boulder back,
And you shall graze on the luscious lawn:
No kindness shall you lack.
But when I get you, Noh Wann, slave,
The gates of hell will shout
'Pity the man though he be a knave!
Spare him! Let him out!'"


With that, all passed into deathly calm
In the black and the chill of my fears
As I sat in the cave with a knife in my palm
And my heart in my pounding ears.
But after what seemed like an age and more
Of the dark and the Giants’ groans
The goats went bleat and sheep went baa
And the Giant shook his bones

And whispered, “Wait now, my pretty dears;
For I’ll now let you out!”
And he blurted out bloodshod eyeless tears
And felt his way about
Till he pushed his brutish paws and shoved
The boulder from the door
And past his legs, the flocks that he loved
Went outward, more and more.

The light streamed into the stretch of the cave
Where I had spent the night.
Outside, the sun and fields did thrive
With summer morning light.
I lay wrapped around the underbelly of a sheep
And I gripped as tight as I could
On its heavy white fleece, so that I could keep
A camouflage, out to the wood

And as the sheep walked to the cave’s big door
I stayed clung to its greasy wool.
My back caught the stones on the rugged floor
And the dust stung the scratches cruel.
Now I and the sheep were about to go
Through the door to the light and the trees
But then to my horror and trembling woe
The Giant got down on his knees

And he patted the back of the ram and he said
“You’re the best of the best of the fold.
I’ll never eat you. Let that promise be said.
You’ll be here with me when you’re old.”
I thought that his nose with its smell would deduce
That my fingers were under his face
I could feel that my grip on the sheep with its grease
Was starting to slip and be loose…

But right then, the goat with the wound made a yelp
And the Giant scrambled up and away:
With the Giant inside giving aid of good help,
Tying round a tight torniquay
On the flank of the goat... My ram moved on
And moved us out into the light
And I soon felt bathed in a raging sun
That blazed with all its might.

But all was changed of the woodland scene
I’d seen the day before;
This wasn’t the place where I’d known I’d been
When I'd run in the cavemouth door!
The trees were gone, the path was straight
And market men walked on
And standing by a wooden gate
Were my friends Bill and Tone.

“My friends, my friends! How did you flee
that monster’s biting jowls?
I saw you torn from neck to knee
To the howling of the owls!”
Bill and Tone just scratched their heads
And looked to the growing stone
On the turn of the path, with its sign “Here leads
To madness: walk alone.”

The moral my friends, the moral of my song
That I sing to you all today
Is that even the road that is boring and long
Is safer than ones that will stray
But the ones that will stray make you live on your wit
And in testing you, keep you alive:
So always go walking the way where you’ll meet
Little dangers that make you survive.



(Apologies to Homer, etc)

I saw the way you pulled your lips in, tight,
And almost twitched the muscles near your eyes,
Half-petrified from drinking through the night.
I saw the way you recognised the cries
of her despair as you read through their words
She'd written down; I saw your throat swell hard,
Your shoulders tense, as memories like birds
of prey encircled you. She had your card,
This writer. She was you and you were her.
There was only one thing for it, then:
You must destroy her like a mangy cur
To kill the rabid, howling fear within
your own caged soul. I saw the way you railed
To wipe her out to save yourself. You failed.

Who's mee Jooolie?
Who's mee Jooooolie?
Who's mee jewelie?
Who?

You're mee Joooolie.
You're mee jewelie.
Alluboo troooolie!!!!
I do!!!


:):)

Thanks for letting me keep typing here
Even if I'm not quite sure I share
That much. I'm not a moderate old soul:
I bark, say 'shit' and 'fuck', play know-it-all
And probably kill more threads than I start.
If virtuality suggests my heart,
I want to thank you both: perhaps I can.
Behind your flatscreen lives blood, flesh and man
that knows your work: that's me. I do love you
In my half-stupid fashion. True. I do.

While I'm digging, dig this, for beauty!



http://www.virginiafairchild.com/Mine-web.jpg

You fix me with the good eye that your missus didn't stab:
It's slightly bluer than the other one.
I would escape. Your hand weighs on my shoulder like a slab:
You roar, "Have one more drink before you're done".

Not that I was going anywhere just yet at all:
I've only been inside this pub three hours.
I say I'll buy the round but you shout "Ballix, it's my call!",
and you order two good stouts and double Powers.

You poke at someone's gut as they sit meekly at the bar:
"Hey, Tony! Did yez know ye're gettin' fat?
Yez used t' be a streak o' piss, as thin as this cigar!
How did yez get as feckin' big as that?"

And Tony doesn't answer, he just juts his chin a bit
and nods to me "Now HE'S the feckin' lump!"
It's true: I spy your belly in the mirror. It would sit
Your pints of Guinness flat down on its bump.

And when you get your pints you want a top up for the two:
"Ye've robbed me half a glassful on each one!"
The barman eyes your bad eye and he glowers, free from view,
"I'll kick your feckin' arse before I'm done".

I say, I'm fine. You interject. "You're NOT that feckin' fine!
If I let them get away with liberties
They'd have their greedy fingers on each hard earned quid that's mine,
And yours, as well. Don't grant them feckers ease."

And as you wave your hands about to demonstrate your point
You knock your Guinness down in Tony's lap.
Now, Tony starts to rise up. Broken glass rings through the joint:
"Ye feckin' ass. Ye're gonna get a slap".

You run straight out the frontdoor of the bar, your heaving gut
All wobbling, your pockets spilling change.
I watch you out the door: You head into the Thug and Mutt
When you think that you're unseen and out of range.

* * * * * *

Yes. That's how I remember you. The pubs you drank in then
Have gone all brass and Bud, all happy hours
And cocktail townies. Gone are your whole kind of drinking men
Who'd spill a pint in verse-inspiring showers.

If you give bootlaces to some people,
Some day they're going to want your legs
Because they can't see that their own would be better:
If they knocked them into shape;
if they wanted to run away from their own machine-gun fire.

I'm tired of carrying my wagon about the battleground
Giving free wares to the wounded of war.
I have a simple heart and no need to keep on this business
of handing out my last bandages to people who have their own
and know how to put them on.

They'll plunder the wagon when I'm gone but I'm taking my store first.
They'll make a raft of the tailboard and pretend the sand's an ocean
Sailing them into more romantic miseries. They'll make a shroud
of the wagonhood, or blinkers to fit around the sun.
But I know, somehow, they will never have call for the wheels.