Chapelein in apple green cleaning the chapel
Vestibules signalling foliate spring festival
A capful of rum in pineapple punch he took at luncheon, unburdening him of learned trenchancy
Lending him confidence enough to pen off a sentence, he has never been much for entrances
Preferring exits
Entranced by orders and oaths of office, saint’s bones and croziers
Its mystical promises
Socialising goes with it, he could do without
He is in truth a Hobbit in a priest’s soot-hued suit
Neither wearing boots nor brokering quarrel with queer outsiders
He recalls a few snippets from his childhood, seen through a roseate veil
Sipping on cans of cheap cider in the back lanes above Ryder’s field
His brother’s bone-impaled broken leg smashed playing Gaelic, outrising a viscera-gleaming spire like a miniature empyrean
Peering around the corner at the girls peeling off their swimsuits at Lough Neagh in the evening, especially Miriam
Popping a large spot in the mirror during his mocks and blotting out his reflection with pus
His eyes took recording of the glorious spagyric life budding in the Lord’s retort
He glory’s hoarder hears prayers reporting like so many streaking feet.
Alchemisland 
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