Slieve Donard II

The suite on the side

facing away from the sea

is the suite with the fireplace

and two plasma screen tvs.

Better luxury compensates

for lack of view. Before

the perpetual gas fire, stunned

as if into stone, entering

as you enter your Anne Brontë,

a world muted, chemically arranged,

I try renewal of a mind remade.

Mind is book is water is fire, all change.

Fear is the wake-up call at three,

too early, for planes. Airport quiet.

Leave the hotel without baggage, fly

direct to Geneva. They await you there.

What occurs is only the turning of a page,

imagined for screen. Unseen is greater.

Is attested to, as we rise in Mass.

Water should be avoided by all those

who get into difficulty with ease, and cats.

Searching for the blackberry in the fur-lined

coat, I roam and ring, opening

a closet, from which tumbles a victim,

providing a fitting climax. Mrs. Pontifax

is staying across the hall. The glamour.

She is the Minister of Finance’s daughter.

She sees the cold winter sea rise from her vantage.

Our age is blinded by celebrity, seeing

with the gilded orb of a bronze, dull god.

The domes of our room service cool

after we have slaked and fed. As you read

this becomes the first one written under the influence

of an anti-depressed self, whatever that is to be.

What is, is taken off a shelf, a remaining wrack

that half emerges from the brackish ruins of the year.

Will love reunite?

Will Ireland be solvent?

All nights, holiest, least holy,

be still, be silent.