Daragh Breen
A BRACE OF HARES
i Boxing Hare
it didn't look it to begin with
but it was only when it
staggered backwards
up onto its lengthened shanks
that its full height became apparent
tottering in its newly imbalanced world
as tall as a toddler
its gargantuan head
stiffly hunched into its neckless shoulders
and as perplexed as Gagarin
peering from within his glass bubble
having been dropped from orbit
and finding himself on
gravity-shaped legs again
it had been pawing through
its usual bag of tricks
but, punch-drunk, it seemed to be incapable
of transforming itself fully, a senile
shape-shifter's game of Exquisite Corpse
as it spun, trapped, blocked from a world
in which no one no longer believed
ii Hare Hex
Given the shell of his curved beak
the small oval of his cranium
seemed too tight within the confines
of the hare's skull. The crow
found his wings fluttering uselessly
against the untannered insides
of the hare's loose bag of flesh,
his claws too weak within the
big pads of the hare's feet
as it staggered about, the front
paws dangling without function
as he turned the hare's head from
left to right, right to left, as he
tried to get his bearings. He fixed
the sun in the East as it glinted
and tilted before he fell backwards
and lay there, enthralled by its glare.
MUMMIFIED DOG-HEADED CHILD DEITY
Abandoned, it had been found
in one of the wombs of light
that appear after dark
in the car park beside the Ferry Terminal.
Still in their Hi-Vis gear and curious
the three men put it through a Security Scanner.
Illuminated, it showed the star-white
of its innards, having retreated to paper form
a manifestation of soul
rendered for Wolf-Time
when the infant can return to all-fours
and its voice escape the echo of language.
SQUATTING OXEN-HEADED DEITIES
Winter-clearing,
we found them among a waste of briars
collaborated beneath a collar of carved oak
heads tilted in contrition
their shoulders X-ed with fresh scratches
blossoming in roses of blood
their eyes tallow from lack of light
they had once been broken
beneath the yoke
and a clippers taken
to the thick leather of their ears,
the fur on their shoulders gone mongrel
an indifferent bird lands on one, momentarily,
before moving off
banished to the Earth
they find themselves cured by mortal blood,
they had dragged funeral carriages in procession
across the skies during the centuries
when they could not bleed,
and now they find themselves released
from the tyranny of immortality.
i Boxing Hare
it didn't look it to begin with
but it was only when it
staggered backwards
up onto its lengthened shanks
that its full height became apparent
tottering in its newly imbalanced world
as tall as a toddler
its gargantuan head
stiffly hunched into its neckless shoulders
and as perplexed as Gagarin
peering from within his glass bubble
having been dropped from orbit
and finding himself on
gravity-shaped legs again
it had been pawing through
its usual bag of tricks
but, punch-drunk, it seemed to be incapable
of transforming itself fully, a senile
shape-shifter's game of Exquisite Corpse
as it spun, trapped, blocked from a world
in which no one no longer believed
ii Hare Hex
Given the shell of his curved beak
the small oval of his cranium
seemed too tight within the confines
of the hare's skull. The crow
found his wings fluttering uselessly
against the untannered insides
of the hare's loose bag of flesh,
his claws too weak within the
big pads of the hare's feet
as it staggered about, the front
paws dangling without function
as he turned the hare's head from
left to right, right to left, as he
tried to get his bearings. He fixed
the sun in the East as it glinted
and tilted before he fell backwards
and lay there, enthralled by its glare.
MUMMIFIED DOG-HEADED CHILD DEITY
Abandoned, it had been found
in one of the wombs of light
that appear after dark
in the car park beside the Ferry Terminal.
Still in their Hi-Vis gear and curious
the three men put it through a Security Scanner.
Illuminated, it showed the star-white
of its innards, having retreated to paper form
a manifestation of soul
rendered for Wolf-Time
when the infant can return to all-fours
and its voice escape the echo of language.
SQUATTING OXEN-HEADED DEITIES
Winter-clearing,
we found them among a waste of briars
collaborated beneath a collar of carved oak
heads tilted in contrition
their shoulders X-ed with fresh scratches
blossoming in roses of blood
their eyes tallow from lack of light
they had once been broken
beneath the yoke
and a clippers taken
to the thick leather of their ears,
the fur on their shoulders gone mongrel
an indifferent bird lands on one, momentarily,
before moving off
banished to the Earth
they find themselves cured by mortal blood,
they had dragged funeral carriages in procession
across the skies during the centuries
when they could not bleed,
and now they find themselves released
from the tyranny of immortality.
© Copyright Daragh Breen 2020
Daragh Breen lives in West Cork. His latest collection, Nostoc, was published by Shearsman Books in January 2020. His previous collection, What the Wolf Heard, was published by Shearsman in 2016. Prior to that, November Press published Whale in 2010 and Across the Sound: shards from the history of an island in 2003. His poetry has appeared extensively in Irish literary journals, and more recently in UK journals such as Blackbox Manifold, Tears in the Fence, Long Poem Magazine and The Fortnightly Review.
