Heigho, who's above
full in the face, lean as grace
stiff in starch, all a quaver
Our bones are there in the frame
as midnight strikes
on the room farthest from the hall
old friends are best
and stories told again
between the boards
alibi, crackaby
a cup of sack and a race of ginger
now they step out
of watching, grim or pretty
hover feet across
first the refugees
Philippe in wig and cravat
verges on a smile
through that Protestant air
Marie in flowing cape or over-dress
hums a lullaby
William smirks with a banker's rigour
from powdered curls
Henriette, shipped in a cask or folds
of a sail, cuts the lady in long-waisted satin
hair enclosed in a little mob cap
then their Dublin fellows
Doctor Thomas, divinity dun
juggles the point of a painted ceiling
which the Rave-ear-end Day-ann
scrutinizes, blue eyes erect on a brown drape
Tom staged-up in his skull-cap
brings a Shakespeare folio
Frances tells the story in secret
an ermine trim beneath raven hair
what dust and smoke-stains release
Sherry clutches his wit
born in the flush of last night's nose
Joseph moonlights from the coast
black coat faced to jig
Lissy, fevered by the stroller's bug
asks how her sash will be read
Captain Henry, debonaire in velvet
doesn't mention money
Betsy rises from a box, ringlets
under Spanish hat with a plume of feathers
and from a year that cannot disappoint
George in buff waistcoat, top-boots
and chocolate coat, long hair brushed back—
the man of The Iron Chest
no random relic
still nearer forms, from miniature to full-length
emerge
Dad the Dean with preaching bands
dances an idea before duty
Angel Emma, elbow on a ballad-book
looks away at a rebel dagger
compelled to heed, do they language
me, come to haunt or help
in necrologic script
who dares dredge up
and rehearse
this sketch
runaway lovers in a squeaking coach
rattle of dice, frisked at Pharaoh
consols converted to hold up a house
someone else's baby
bottles stuffed down a drain
sheet to end it all
I am where they have been
not blanched or cold
in quittance of a panel
knotted through slippery ground
the traces stay, puppet to flesh
one shape of many names
reddish hair, a piercing eye
the urge to scribble
prest in the glome some gives out
a huggin note to stay ire
as fare—well—come
to the blind-key side
stake smock alloy
so French falls a sheer leaf
on dub bin knolls on core
they start a version got by double-sib
anecdote spells unstuff
the ridotto, take your silver ticket
off site and de-fribilize
the first dumb soul
can breathe
great words not suffer to be dormant
cross like Hamlet
from Dorset house to the Green
Eccles street, Glasnevin
Cuffe, Molesworth, Leeson street
Lower Dominick, Nelson street
Warrington place
stretch their livers
to Merrion square
those won't settle
mounted to endear
in a quiet back chamber
must sigh or sing through wads
of cloud, must make a record
through cancelled bars
what's to see at a third remove
one side mischief, the other virtue
bluish lead under gold
begs in parade are you with
are you by
looking on the groove
of Joseph's dome I recoil
forty years and go as a boy
in a hackney coach
from the Park to the Custom House
for paper and sealing wax
the old man still angling
for a stunner at Drury Lane
the lad drawing pictures with a tag—
a balloonist tumbling to get to heaven
assume they return
still in your father's house
the book inscribed
is aware—Sue you should
have been with me
slipping into the room
like them to press and stare
if it's left me to write
the tale to its end
emulsion flaking from the negative
at verge of belief I'll tease
a figure out of the blank
something we'd rather not
sniffs at the roundy-ken
a guest you'd wanted rid
proves to be there
day and night