There are so many more ruins here — these
stone shells
adorning the landscape.
I don’t know of the purpose
of any buildings I saw there,
But who knew
the dead husk
of an Irish farmhouse
could still
carry a sad air?
They make newbuilds like them
in the vain hope
these Greystone facades
hide the border
between the present
and the evacuated
(read: depopulated)
futures of slate skeletons.
Looking down
at the passport that brought me here
I catch some resemblance
of the person in the picture
and
that house.
I think he looks
more natural, more slowly formed
than made,
but
these are the hag stone features of a face
which stare back,
like empty windows
in an abandoned shack.
In those druids’ glass eyes
is the arrogant gleam of a misogynist,
that takes the howling of the wind
through adders stone
as bravery.
I wonder
if I am mistaking the wearing down,
the still ongoing erosion
of snakebite sediment,
the loss of irreplaceable things,
for change.
For this material,
unlike drunken boats,
just sinks.
I think he,
in the photo,
is still sinking,
still sick
since seventeen.
But who knows?
Those futures may not be deceased,
but departed,
and whilst you may think that
the material of a ruin
is static,
I heard
out there in a distant desert,
some stones can sail.
