War of Independence: Unrecorded incident

Willy Murphy is not in the war.
He carts gravel and clay
along the birdsong roads of Kildare,
milks a cow, can shoe a horse
draws turf from the Bog of Allen.
He is not in the war. The Tans do not know this,
nor do they care: all are guilty.
When he hears the lorries stop outside
he leaves his bed at midnight,
flits by the hedge of the field
to the sheltered pond at the far corner, slips in.
He thinks of men dragged behind lorries,
torment in the barracks, an infant shot for sport.
The lorries start up. Engines fade towards the Hill of Caragh.
But sometimes they leave men with guns behind, to wait.
He waits. Mud seeks to suck him into its black mouth
whispers your time came then, you have no business here.
The lorries do not come back.
The dark lightens and a bird sings.
Another day in the story begins.

Published, 2001, in Poetry Ireland, Autumn issue

Influenza, 1918

The dying woman roars again
and the stench of lavender and disinfectant
attacks our revolted senses.
Her awful roaring tears through the bedrooms
and echoes through the great floors below
and down into the dark cellar
where their father sketched a dragon
across the wall for the children at Halloween.
Her roars hammer at the children's heads
and terror stains the deepest well of their minds.
The influenza will fling her howling
she believes into everlasting hellfire
and though she is a guiltless woman
she roars in her delirium
for God to pardon her and cleanse her soul.
Her pallid husband goes in and out of the room.
The women shush the children away
for fear they will tumble with her into the pit.
The softness in her voice is gone;
its hard horror dries up their mouths.
The cattle bellow in the yard outside
and the doctor's Model-T Ford
importantly rat-a-tats up the avenue.
The gravel patiently awaits
the wheels of the inevitable hearse.
The women drink tea but terror drives taste away.
They reek of disinfectant and lavender.
They long for fresh air, trees and flowers,
a man yoking a horse to go to the fields.
The woman roars again: forgive me!
Her children press their hands over their ears
but now it is too late for that:
her terror has begun to ring
and echo down the passage to their graves.

Published, 2000, in Poetry Ireland, Spring issue