I was in a foreign country:
the fishermen
and the oilmen home from the rigs
gave us dirty notes
to fetch them half bottles of whiskey

the incense in the smoggy chapel
the responses, the alabaster figures were foreign to me
like the mountains of lough and gorse

and Jesus said, This is my body
but I saw nothing holy in that
the sin is mine, not his, I thought
not to be bartered or bought by rhyme.

How cruel can you be? my cousin invoked
a bearded fellow nailed to a tree
a fisherman drowned in his nets
the votive wishes ragged on the hawthorns –
he let go in the wind

he would hard boil new laid eggs
and put them back under brooding hens
piss in the holy water
curse God in the dark echo of the pine forest
kick over milk churns left at the lane end
shout at the convent girls,
A hole is easier to make than a pole!

On Saturday nights the televisions flickered
behind curtains
sports played out that were not mine
and although the village was a cross of streets
open ended to sea and land
it was claustrophobic to me.

Drink some of this and we’ll top it with water,
as we lay on the flat felt roof of the Parochial hall
stones piled like dolmens around us
watching the girls go in to the dance

the ruddy faced farmers down from the hills
on bicycles that rattled bones of loneliness
as they drank the bitter draughts of exiles
and stood on the stone ridge of the building
tightly gripping the window-sill with one hand
the other jerking madly in their trousers.