A poem about loss, grief and the numbness experienced as we process trauma. It is also about old emotions hijacking an unrelated loss; and how at the heart-level, time stands still.

Between Two Times

This Christmas I got sick and spent a few days in the hospital. In the end, I needed some minor surgery on the 27th and am now back home, recovering - a little sore but fine. Before receiving the required attention, I spent over twenty hours waiting in Accident & Emergency (or the ER for my friends across the pond). I was in a lot of pain, but nothing compared to some of the poor souls I saw and met. The experience affected me quite deeply both in terms of the awfulness of some of what I saw; but also in terms of the camaraderie, kindness and professionalism against the odds that I witnessed.

The Emergency Room

This poem explores society's relationship with alcohol and hints at the artist's experience of addiction.

Liquid

The Dark Watchman 

A Poem

The Dark Watchman came to see me again.
‘I have been collecting for you,’ he said.
‘We appear to have similar interests.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ I replied. ‘I deal in light.
I see only goodness in my people.’
He smiled, ‘Perhaps opposites attract. No?’

He spread his arms, and his black cloak bellowed.
‘Doesn’t this feel familiar?’ he taunted,
as he enveloped me in his shadow.

My heart, at once, recognised the danger
and began to beat in a way I knew
all too well. It felt like falling in love.

‘Now,’ he asked. ‘Do you recognise the truth?
Half of you is broken and will consume
as much calamity as it can find.’

‘You believe yourself to be of the light - 
but you are mine! You fool, you’re mine! You’re mine!’
I could hear other voices in the soup.

As they became clearer, I realised
they were singing in unison with him.
‘Old friends and lovers! Lost souls forever!’

An awful yearning came over me then
and I recalled such beautiful sadness
as can only be known in the darkness.

‘It’s easier this way,’ the Dark Watchman said,
‘and you’ll find that love is more powerful,
desire - more beautiful, and endless too!’

‘Always attracting. Always connecting - 
The world will come to you, if you let it.
I will keep collecting on your behalf.’

I felt the dull haze of sleep coming on.
My goodness was aching at the window - 
firmly outside of me and growing cold.

Like a noir-cliché from some old movie
I said, ‘Pour me another one, buddy.’
This may be my version of the Big Sleep,

fixing the broken until it kills me.’
The Watchman said, ‘You’re going to die someday.
Until then, stick with me. The light can wait.’

©Niall O’Connell 2023. All Rights Reserved

The Dark Watchman

---

Roughly once a year,
if I'm passing,
I will call on my Grandmother - 
my Grandfather too.
It's a short detour
from a certain route.
So, if I happen to be about,
and skies are blue,
I'll come off the main road,
past the church and old house,
with its new lawn and new shed;
and stop by the graveyard 
to speak to the dead.

Funny, it still has
a squeaky gate,
and smells of cut grass in April - 
the month of her death.
It looks just the same - 
graveyards always do.
I feel a bit like an intruder - 
feel guilty too.
I will look right and left
to see who's watching
my awkward, naked procession,
towards the plot.
It feels a lot like confession.

The grave itself, looks
jaded and worn.
Passing time without assistance
from family or friends
has taken its toll.
The scattering of headstones,
alternating shiny and dull ones,
doesn't seem fair.
A creeping of shame
at the sight of lichen-worn
engraving - misspelt and threadbare.
I remember myself
and an old, old prayer.

A rosary for her…
How does it go
again? I try to remember
Glory be, blessed are,
deliver us from…
I feel deaf and dumb
Why did I even come?
To speak to a stone
and a pile of old bones;
and why hasn't Mum
been for more than twenty years?
Milky Moos, pocket change - 
memories or veneer?

I mutter some words,
an internal jumble
and then I stop myself.
I'm searching for a feeling,
the sense of her…
I kind of remember.
So, I wish her the best - 
eternal rest
for the faithful departed.
I am more confused now
than I was when I started;
and I resolve never to 
pray again, halfhearted.

---

©Niall O'Connell 2023. All Rights Reserved