Poem of the Week: An Uncrowned King
this is a dialogue of gravestones,
and there he lies –
there he will lie, too –
Glasnevin, the bastion for his speaking stone,
the keen man, roused from the Poddle
and the Blackpitts’ muddy streets,
his birthblood lean and soft alike,
wrought of muck,
and a pinkeen’s lithe and daring flight –
that thrice-backed glue-spine
glut-happy, here, one third north
in the centre of the world,
the Irish river fish that shares a name
with an alpine plant, pink and flush,
whose starry flowers salt summer’s end,
the river fish that’s truly two,
minnow and stickleback at-swim, weavers both
along the old Stone Boat’s tongue,
that pair, best known for dazzling Tinbergen,
the learned man, who found, in Kimmage water,
the seed and root of the old agnosty cry,
and those fish, if they haunted the gates of hell,
in human form, clustering in the gambling grounds
of Fishamble and Winetavern Street,
St. Michael’s Hill and Christ Church Lane,
where painted women sang, and squalor
prove a harsh backdrop for sheriffs –
judges and barristers too – careening through
the narrow passages, guarded by cast-iron gates,
marking out the birthplace of scáiltín ,
that whiskey mixed with butter, often turned to punch
with milk and spice, and even broth-turned beef –
those fish, if they haunted the streets
the old Blackpitts poet walked,
like Sweeney, they’d sing
of the rights of man,
and Ireland’s uncrowned king –
Oisín Breen has published two collections, Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín (Downingfield) and Flowers, All Sorts, in Blossom, Figs, Berries, and Fruits Forgotten (Dreich, 2020). His third collection, The Kergyma, is due soon (Salmon Poetry)