dumbshow
TRANSCRIPT
University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)
DumbshowAuthor(s): John MontagueSource: New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), p. 29Published by: University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20557681 .
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FiliochtNua: New Poetry
princely dust was laid to rest.
Now such rites fade, spectral as a chrome or plastic vessel.
Part spirit, we long for past ritual.
Brightness of flowers on a lit table
ignites memories of goblet, grail:
each petal powerful, still, frail.
0*j
DUMBSHOW
You'll have to run down to the shop:
my head dips, a dumbshow of assent,
as my aunt pens out the lengthening list of articles no longer found on our musty shelf.
Windswift as Wilson, the Wizard's sprinting star,
I whip down the always widening Broad Road, then huddle, hang around, hesitate in the dark cavern at the back of Kelly's newer shop.
Until there is no one left, and then I try to fishgasp something, but in the end
just push forward the scribbled grocery list and nod eagerly, as each item is cleared off.
A gas lamp hangs its hissing circle
over the flitches of lean and back bacon,
ropes of sausages, thick crusted bread;
and all those words thronged in my head.
Every time I stand forth, fluent-tongued
in some foreign place, before an audience,
I am haunted, dogged by that mute lad,
as, warmly introduced, I step from the darkness.
29
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