THREE POEMS
CIARAN McDERMOtt
POEM I
SIDDHARTHA
To the bank they offer their smooth
heads five steppingstones rising
or molars looping the gape
of a mouth flattened by surge
bloating to a worm with no head
or tail a perfect ring shattered into
glittering pieces rippled with the
soundless bulge of forms only almost
animal that come spluttered up
stillborn in the floods that swallow
walker’s footprints
and scrub thousand-tongued garlic
with bedrock unbroken artery
of blended elements honey-amber
with mud shuttled downstream
to feed hungry oceans.
POEM II
WHAT THE VOICE OF THE RAIN TOLD ME
How are such things forgotten?
millions of small needles
Do they remain behind in the womb?
entering the earth’s shattered glass
Do we drop them in our confusion?
In the trauma of being born?
each one
hollow and flute-throated
How can we relearn to sing like the birds do?
as fine as the moon’s boomerang edge
strong enough to chew through rock
What is this music that bristles my flesh?
constant
as the low burble of a campfire
What is this drum as solid as a heart beating?
Who is this woman weeping?
and as soft as a thrush’s murmur
What song shapes and remakes the brittle dust?
millions of minute
moon-globed mouths of light
trained on a single word
remember remember remember
POEM III
TEMPLE
Nightly I offer my trembling sacrament
to the blank sheet’s freezing blaze.
Some nights the air clots light-streaked
as if staired with pillars thrown
from stained glass, while the stone walls growl
under the clawed pressure of storms.
Other times I silently take my mat
in a concentrated absence of dawn-green
and listen to the fluted throat of bamboo
recite the music of spring rain.
I live for the nights
where a single fluttering candle winks
atop a bare altar
a lone boat
creaking on a roll of ink-black sea
cradled in the wave that will drown it.
CIARAN MCDERMOTT grew up in rural Staffordshire but currently lives in Scotland. His work has been published widely in journals and anthologies, includingPoetry Birmingham, Acumen, Dream Catcher, Obsessed with Pipework, The Journal and Rust & Moth, among others. He was longlisted for the Erbacce Prize in 2021 and 2022, and shortlisted for the Dai Fry award in 2022. He earned his MA (Distinction) in Literature from the University of Bristol.