Poems by Allain Blaithin

In ainm an anama
In the name of the ghost

….and then they stamp
a filmed flimsy bag
with Ashes to a certificate
of death half-blank

which felt light 
as if a membrane
had extracted all refuse
and remembrance  

of the skinny nicotine grasp
on empty pills, spilled flasks
or a blue flame staggering
blackout.

Who knows how alone
your remains had staled
found five days late. I picture
amber flicker in the room,  

the last instant a candle
mutters as embers wake
to pale moons like moths
darkly dancing.

I unseal the plastic,
your cinders clinging
on my fingers shiver
along the palm and wing

over the indifferent water
and so I let them rise
this dusk from dust
from ruins once

wounds with eyes asking
that by the scattered light
a speck of some soul’s dignity
abides.

 

Doll

They call me doll.
I dangle along a dumpling rag
although an old woman now.

Come the night, I press its fluff
too tight, thread my darling’s hair,
sever her sewn lips and carefully

pluck the button eye, while other
eyes on me pry.  I am assigned
to Alzheimers, where I wander,

in nimble zigzags, daft
as a butterfly, and as I drift
I mouth my silent, wounded

words wondering what they
might decipher, but I remember
the dances, the crowded laughter

as they twist me on higher,
the masters screaming “faster”.
They pull my puppet limbs,

puncture my skin,  until I
the mannequin in the mirror,
white and dumb but dutiful

twirl again, then rinse myself raw
of all reminiscence.  The dawn
bruised in violets crosses my vision

and I half blind dress my
baby doll, smother her in kisses,
lay her where the flowers lull,

until foetal, I too slip
into her slumber.