Lyrical Somerville – October 28

On October 28, 2015, in Latest News, by The Somerville Times

lyrical_banner

Somerville Poet Dennis Daly writes: “The following ekphrastic poem, Odd Man, I based on a highly affecting 1947 British noir film set in Northern Ireland entitled Odd Man Out, directed by Carol Reed and starring James Mason. The movie had in turn been inspired by F.L. Green’s novel of the same name. – DD”

lyrical_10_28_15_web

Odd Man

 

Amok they’ll run. Over tea they’ll plot

Forays of liberation. So fife

And drum bring cheers, the heart’s tommyrot

That taunts tyrant rule, the sharpened knife

 

Of order. Those boys will have their day,

Long dreamed, the reverence and the homage.

They’ll come to know infernal foreplay

Like buttered turnips and boiled carnage.

 

Beware of multicolored daub-men

Who paint blood, who dime their brothers out

To tribal chiefs. Raiders comprehend

Old routes. They strike, flee, walkabout.

 

After the brawl one stumbles forward,

Burdened with foul sins of risen ghosts.

He turns face to sleet, his men bestirred

In misuse. He clings to life’s lampposts.

 

— Dennis Daly

 

_________________________________________
To have your work considered for the LYRICAL send it to:
dougholder@post.harvard.edu

 

Comments are closed.