2 Poems by Bernadette McCarthy

HEAVEN VILLANELLE 

Heaven, don�t stare at this empty frame,
let it dwindle back to whin and spaghnum moss.
The altar�s smashed and the shrine profaned; 

sooner be a rock without a name,
sooner turf to heat a soldier�s pot.
Heaven, don�t stare at this empty frame. 

The stones sweated faith in the flame,
the floors swore, the chimneys howled their loss:
�The altar�s smashed and the shrine profaned�. 

Boiled-out eyes within the open grave
can better push against your pike-head glance.
Heaven, don�t stare at this empty frame 

for purity and peace will never be obtained
in this unholy Roman land unless
altar be smashed and shrine profaned. 

A lost soul can never be regained;
God is deaf as lead in a gold cross.
Heaven, don�t stare at this empty frame.
The altar�s smashed and the shrine profaned. 

HELL GHAZAL 

Your fasting hand upon my knee is hell.
Your hennaed wrists, an augury of hell. 

Bleached gown panting on the damask
counterpane: organza, expired and been to hell. 

I would have freed the spider from the lettuce bag,
but you folded him into a tiny, creased hell. 

There is poetry in the fall of your sleeve
as you tattoo me, fringe delicate as a seashell. 

Let us go the wrong way round Gobnait�s well,
turning the sorrowful mystery tuathail . 

Red weather warning and Dingle blacked out.
Tea-lights on the counter. �Dusky as hell�. 

Kohled brows can never chasten Berber eyes.
Open them wide and punish me to hell! 

Bionote

Bernadette McCarthy lives in Co. Cork, Ireland, and has a PhD in medieval archaeology. Her poems have featured in The Lake , The Linnet's Wings , Crann�g , and Cauesway/Cabhsair . She is editor-in-chief of Brain of Forgetting .