Eating Pain
From so long, I have been affected
by heavy lots of pain and sufferings,
as if a fee were due to being alive.
Sometimes I revolt and get nervous,
sometimes I resign myself to Destiny.
Last evening, having dinner at the table,
I could not avoid pouring abundant tears,
which washed my hands and my bread.
So, I remembered the Last Supper, where
Our Lord had blessed the bread with wine,
leaving it as consecrated leavening to endure
coming days and times of beloved humanity.
I ate this bread, seasoned by salty hot tears,
with the joy of the righteous,
and, conscious of the miracle of the moment,
I also ate and put an end to the lack of faith.
First published in Whispers.
A Brave New Man
From immemorial times I feel a dust
always hunting me wherever I go.
It blows softly and lightly, furtively
involving and deluding me.
It is a peculiar dust, that has in mind
not my body but my soul.
Created by the power of my enemies
and my disillusions, it works to calcify
the framework of my entire being.
But by night, at home and asleep--
you have all the right not to believe me--
invisible angels pour a cleansing rain
and by dawn it is a new and fresh man
who faces so old-fashioned a world.
First published in The Basil O’Flaherty.