that is long-past born
but labouring still.
Your magical contraption:
full to the brim
with the defaced lore
of places and faces,
times and crimes,
an antiquary of intrigue,
housing a poor man’s chiaroscuro.
A moment stretched
for partners-in-time,
we’re the aproned saints
of impossible causes –
late developers.
Behind the Lens
and
Between the Lines
Late Developer
When I was in America touring Look Behind You! and Nuclear Family, a lady approached me one night and asked if the photograph of the father holding the boy’s hand was me and my Da, and when I said it wasn’t, she – without missing a beat – replied: ‘Well honey, you’re in America now, so from now on, that’s you and your father!’
The man and child in the photograph are walking through the notorious Divis Flats complex in Belfast. In this instance, the poem was written first and the photograph curated as an accompaniment. I like the symmetry of the subjects’ stride, and how their intimacy contrasts with the implacable, modernist facade of the flats and the dark concrete walls. That splash made by the child also appeals to me, as no matter what’s going on around you in the adult world, puddles are still for splashing. I also like how the boy – like all kids holding a parent’s hand – seems to be lagging behind, scurrying, caught between the need to keep up and the need to do childish things.
The poem was inspired by nights spent watching my father work under the red light, particularly when we lived in Irish Street, Downpatrick, where I spent the first nine years of my life. I can still smell the strangely comforting yet pungent combination of cigarette smoke and chemicals. These days, he develops mostly in Lightroom, the photo-developing software. Darkroom during The Troubles, Lightroom in times of peace. Fitting.
All Key-Holders Attend … (The Devil’s in the Retail)
No sound needed to hear this one:
Hugh J. O’Boyle’s hardware store is roaring
like a Titanic furnace, going up,
just like t’other went down.
Both would only shine bright the once,
and the very thing that did for the ship
was exactly what these firemen could have done with
on this night to remember.
It’s Downpatrick, 1975, and this evening’s
devil-cast is coming to us live from up there
where Irish Street meets its false summit,
the Folly Lane, just in there on the right,
before giving way to Stream Street.
Before us stands a business on its last legs:
Mid-encore, whipping up a storm,
it’s an all-singeing,
all-dancing flames performance,
awash with pyrotechnics
and musical accompaniment courtesy of
The Ulster Cacophonic Orchestra,
Conductor: Old Nick himself.
The fourth wall is about to be broken
but the audience – no longer able to suspend
its disbelief – is ill-prepared.
The finale, when it comes,
will bring the house down,
confounding the critics once again
while giving encouragement
to dire authors and their impresarios.
*****
As a young pup,
filled with a shameful giddy-delight,
I used to ride shotgun
to such fires with my Da.
Often arriving before the tenders,
we got to see the firemen
tumble down from their cab
and stand in a hands-on-hips tableau,
allowing themselves to be enthralled,
briefly, civilian-like,
by the spectacle before them.
And then how they’d briskly rub their faces
to break the spell, drowning out
all bewitching sounds by shouting
assessments, instructions, and unholy oaths
in accents as thick as any farl
that has ever graced an Ulster fry.
On nights such as these,
The ‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!’ hotline crackled
before going dead.
But most of all, my cheeks remember
the stovish heat, and how my clothes and hair
carried home a thermogenic musk.
*****
Aye, Boyle’s was a Roman candle that night.
After all these years,
it
