Derry Nights
I Dream of Fire
by Greg Patrick
“Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the
daylight?'
A man may do both,' said Aragorn. 'For not we but those who come after will
make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter
of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Immersed in the old songs and the depths of
memory, I envision her smile, red lips like old
wounds reopening as fresh and red as the
day I bled. In the cold where old wounds pulse and
sighs steam. In the dark where warriors are
allowed to shed tears. Firelight and old songs cast
their spell in duet, distant haunted eyes
cast over the red dreamscapes of memory...
I dream in the red of fire and pallor of
snow and I speak to it in the elusive words of songs and
unsung. A dreamscape of snow hailing her
like frozen tears melting midair amid the burning
debris. I reunite with her in that
dreamscape, an intruder in the past….I stand in an uncoloured
silhouette, the outline on a Pre-Raphaelite
canvas while she graces the scene in a vision of red of
hair and eyes of depth of Celtic Sea.
I stand aloof among the raucous merriment
of the caravan fires. Immersing myself in the
sonorous embrace of old song. In recurring
dreams and in moments when distant haunted eyes look
into the depths of caravan flames I revisit
the moment as if I were the ghost and not her....I walk
among the flames of the bomb’s aftermath,
unburnt and numb. Walking towards it
even as others stagger and reel bloodied
and burnt away from it, choking through the
smoke or screaming, mouths soundless to my
deafened ringing ears.
My last sight of her like, frail as a moth
in an aerial dance with the light as I raced explosions to
get to her to be by her side.
I am thrown to the ground.
I see her then. She lies among smoking and
burning debris. I kneel by her side...palm feeling her
heartbeat and pressing down again and
again....tasting her shallow breath as I breathe into
her mouth....”Wake up! Wake up!”
It can't end...not like this...
“And why can't it?” the Dark Goddess
mocks...”You are all mortals. It is not your place
to deny or defy the gods when we call for
sacrifice.”
Her voice is like venomed honey spread by a
sharp blade. I won't listen… I can't.
I look back to my muse...
I had thought her smile silence set to
music and as soundlessly my lips formed a trinity of words.
Words I was forbidden to speak as we both
drew breath steam in the air.
I still bore the burns as my dreams were
haunted by the radiant ghost of her like a ghost’s waltz
in a castle’s ruins, her hair beggaring the
red of the fire.
I hold her in the eye of the storm…
Standing like an island with poetry at its
soul and an empty throne at its heart.
What was fire anyway?
I had touched her hair in the midst of the
fire.
Only the dead and the damned can touch
flame…
I remember when we first met…
She is unsure of me…
“I heard you people steal…” she says.
“You have me beat there. You stole my heart
at a glance. How did you do it?”
She laughs...and I laugh...
“Come you shouldn't be seen with his
kind...” her elders scold.
She lingers and I as well. Fingers
entwined.
Pressed her palm to my heart in parting
before we are pulled apart.
Then that night...
I pressed down again and again...
No...not like that...Breathe...
“Go away!” I demand as the Dark Goddess
hovers....
“I am your shadow...your shadow....”
The darkness closes in...the wings enfold
her....a pale face framed by raven hair leans in for her
lips...
I am pulled away...
“Come on Paddy. The soldiers are
coming....Come on....She's gone....you have to let her
go...she's gone....”
The rains fell then cold, though I was
oblivious to it, extinguishing the flames and banishing
them to haunt my soul and recurring dreams
like red ghosts amid castle ruins.
I am disoriented for a moment....I recoil
from the flames...why? Just the campfires amid the
caravans.
The reassuring presence of my cob ponies
nuzzling me. I snuggle them fondly.
It is a remote site we have encamped on…far
away enough from the city that the stars in their
myriads haunt the skies and eyes.
Far from the long walk back then behind the
walls and wires...Who am I?
I was young when emaciated rebels drew
their last breath in a Belfast gaol.
I am ancient now, older than the hills,
when swords are relic and men slay with fire.
It is a haunted place we encamp in…There
are so many ghosts here.
I feel their hunger…
It is a hunger that emaciates the
soul...that drains in succession every oasis of the nomad's
passage...night of restless shadows that
the musician conjures and weaves into songs...I know the
isolation of the gods...
I think of her then, a vision of beauty
behind green eyes like tidepools of Celtic Sea and a
smile that was silence set to music or
incantation casting its spell, silencing all the background
music. Outshining a succession of smiles
like nomad fires in a painted desert, kindled over the
heart and extinguished with the dawn, all
for the betrayal of a mirage.
I stand aloof among the raucous merriment
of the caravan fires. Immersing myself in the
sonorous embrace of old song.
I am a brooding presence in their midst, a
living shadow beyond their raucous merriment.
I tear the no pikeys and gypsies sign that
confronts me on a rusted post and cast it to the flames.
It ignites and flares lighting my face and
eyes in crimson.
I see their silhouettes weaving around
throwing punches in bare knuckle fights, others shouting
encouragement. I stray from the shadows at
last. I feel the sensations of the fire's warmth
as I appear to their eyes.
I raise my fists mechanically and answer a
challenge. I am jeered.
“You can't win. You can't win.”
It becomes a chant that echoes in my soul.
Those are the only jabs I feel.
I clench my fists. Blood fills my eyes. I
am blinded, bruised, and bloodied…everything is
surreal and abstract.
I am not myself anymore.
Who am I?
I am Cuchulainn wounded from their swords
slumped against the rock…
I recognise voices around me.
I reel and sway....
“Come on....You can't win,” they urge...
Then another voice echoing them....the Dark
Goddess....
I feel a flutter of dark wings.
Sharp talons clutch my shoulder.
“You can't win”, the dark goddess whispers.
The rock alone keeps me standing…
there is no rock…not really... what is it
then?
“If your dead girl could see ye now”, one
mocks.
The words stab as cold as blades.
The shadows closed in as if coiling around
me constricting and hissing....
I clench my fist.
But she does...
I see her as well in the fire's radiance...
The strength isn't mine that I am
wielding…that I am rallying on...
Men died here...so many...
They slew and were slain in turn.
I feel the thrill of young warriors eager
for battle, the coldness of blades and of bodies strewn on
the red grass...Shadows are granted form
and face men in golden armour with shining swords wrought
and forged with pride.
Their battle cries sweep my soul with the
rush of wind, urging me to rise...I feel her
shadow...hear her mocking voice claw at my
soul....
I clench my fists....
Eyes of the wounded warrior slumped against
the standing stone open as he sees his enemies daring
each other forward to finish him...just one
more blow and he falls....
One steps forward with fist raised. There
is no reason for him not to think I will fall to that fist.
My eyes open suddenly. The crows harrying
me digging in with claws and words fly in a dark
torrent from me hailing me with black
feathers like tears of midnight...the shadow of my fist striking first...
The words of my battle cry...how are they
mine? I do not know the tongue...words of a song lost
to bards…long passed with the legends they
sang of.
The fist flies with the closing wave of
darkness....
as if the poetry that haunted my soul was a
force of nature kindled by dormant fire smoldering in my
soul at my touch...
“It is not for you to wield...no mortal
can...”
I just did crone...behold...
The fist takes him...bones crack...
He falls as I stagger back, surprised at
what I was able to strike with.
There is silence around the fires.... They
see me but they don't...
There is no recognition anymore.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?”
I don't know...
“Where did you learn to sing those words?”
Who says there has to be an answer?
The crone melts into formless darkness,
into my shadow cast by the fire...
The soloist song becomes a chorus as they
join in slowly then steadily...
At last I open my eyes and the fires have
burnt low. They have fallen asleep at last.
I cannot...
She is there...a tender hand on my
wounds...on my bruises...on my regrets...
Who am I? The first or the last among
exiles? The eternal nomad or the pilgrim?
I am shadow...I am darkness...I am
memory....I dream of her....I dream of fire....
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