If I had stanzas rough and jolting enough
To describe our descent
Into this pit hollowed out of the earth
Whose walls supported the converging weight
Of Hell, then I would press the juice of
My memory to the last drop.
But I don’t have them, so balk at going on.
To describe this heart of darkness as it truly is
Is no child’s play, no place for jingling lines
That come off pat. I doubt those ladies that
Helped Amphion wall in Thebes
Can be of much help.
As we went down, unsteadily,
Scraping against the compacted layers of
History, Berrigan handed me a snow-suit.
‘You might be needing this,’ he said, ‘put it on.’
We hit rock bottom as I was pulling up the zip,
And as I stepped out, dizzy, still gazing up at those
High walls, I heard a voice address me:
‘Mind where you step, big fellow, you don’t want
To be crushing the heads of these sorry souls
With your big boots.’ At once I turned around
And I saw stretching before me and beneath
My feet a vast lake, frozen over,
So that it looked more like perspex than ice.
Even those freak winters cold enough to freeze
The Colne over from Wivenhoe to Mersea Island,
Or to freeze over the waters of Lough Neagh,
Never made ice so thick as you saw down here;
If Slieve Gullion had been dropped on it,
Or even Slieve Donard, it wouldn’t have cracked,
Not even at the edges. And as frogs sit
With their bodies half out of the water,
Croaking away, in that season when academics
Put their feet up, brushing up on Gramsci,
Or concocting a new reading of Paradise Lost,
So these shivering shades were wedged in the ice,
Right up to their belly buttons, their teeth
Chattering away like joke-shop dentures.
Every one of them held his face pointing
Downwards, like politicians browsing in a porn
Emporium, their teeth testifying to their
Suffering, their eyes to the sorrow in their hearts.
When I’d had a good look around, I glanced
Down at my feet, and there I saw two shades
So pressed together that the hair on their heads
Was entwined. ‘You there,’ I said, ‘who won’t let
Each other go, tell me who you are.’ At this,
They twisted their stiff necks, and when they had
Raised their faces towards me, their eyes,
Which were bloodshot with the cold,
Began to shed tears, which fell to their lips,
Freezing fast as they went so that the two
Were ever more firmly locked together.
An industrial stapler never fixed
Plasterboard to wood so strongly;
And they, like dodgems, constantly bumped each other.
Another one, who had lost both ears to the cold,
His face peering into the icy mirror,
Called out: ‘What are you staring at?
If you want to know who these two are,
The valley where the Bann descends
Belonged to them, and to their father Brian
O’Brien, an Ulster Chieftain; they fought over
Their inheritance till both lay dead.
And let me tell you, if you search the whole of
Cain’s Corner, you won’t find souls
More fit to be stuck in this frozen aspic;
Not she who beheaded her cousin Mary,
Not Jack Wall, who stabbed his brother after
A day’s drinking, not even this one here
Whose head blocks my view, Sean MacHeron:
His family ran a removals firm in
Carrickfergus where he murdered his cousin,
Burying him in concrete, to get his hands on
The business; if you’re a northerner, you’ll no doubt
Know the tale. And to save you the trouble of
Asking, I’m Seamus O’Connol, who quarrelled
With my uncle over a farm; my crime
Was nothing compared to my cousin Owen’s,
Who told the Brits we were storming the castle.’
Afterwards, I saw a thousand doglike faces
Made purple by the cold, and I thought of
The pub at the top of Scheregate Steps,
The Purple Dog, and wondered if its owners
Had visited this region of Hell.
That’s why I shudder, and always will,
Each time I walk past it, and rush by
The man selling The Big Issue there.
While we made our way farther into the
Frozen Zone, crossing the ice with careful steps,
Perhaps it was fate, perhaps chance, I don’t know,
But picking our way through the heads,
My Docs struck one of them in the face.
Letting out a yelp, it barked at me:
‘What the Hell do you think you’re doing!
Surely you haven’t come to punish me
For fetching the English across the water?
For Christ’s sake, lay off!’ And I:
‘Berrigan, my master, wait here a moment,
I’d like to check this one out, then
We can press on as quickly as you like.’
Berrigan stopped dead in his tracks,
And I turned to that purple shade,
Who still hadn’t let up cursing, and said:
‘Who the Hell are you, losing your rag at us like that?’
‘I like your sauce,’ he answered, ‘what on earth
do you think you’re doing marching through here
Kicking people in the head? Not even a
Living man could kick as hard as you do!’
‘I am a living man,’ I said, ‘and if you
Know what’s good for you, tell me your name,
So I can put you in my notebook
And spread your fame at the Writers’ Forum.’
‘Not likely,’ he said, ‘that’s the last thing I want.
You’ve got a funny idea of flattery.
Now bugger off and leave me alone!’
Then I grabbed him by the scruff and said:
‘If you want any hairs left on your head
You’d better give me your name.’
‘You can tug away till I’m bald,
And kick my teeth in for all I care,’ he said,
‘I’m giving neither name nor number!’
I already had his hair twisted round my
Fist, and had pulled out a few handfuls,
As he kept up his howling,
When another voice cried: ‘What’s up, Dermot?
It’s bad enough listening to your teeth chattering,
Do you have to start barking as well?’
‘So it’s you,’ I said, ‘Dermot MacMurrough,
The biggest traitor of the lot! I might have guessed.
I’ll make sure I tell about you, don’t worry.’
‘Fuck off!’ he answered. ‘Tell what you like,
But if you’re lucky enough to escape this hole
Don’t forget to mention that blabbermouth
Russell: “I saw,” you can tell them, “the bastard
Who stood by as the Irish dropped dead through hunger,
Stuck up to his neck in the fridge.”
And if anyone asks you who else was there,
Right under your feet is Billy McCaughey,
And if you go on a wee bit, you’ll find that
Turncoat Florence MacCarthy, along with
MacMahon and Gerald Fennell who would have
Opened the gates at Clonmel while the people slept.’
We had already left him, when I saw
Two frozen in one hole so close together
That the one head was a cap for the other,
And as a famished man sinks his teeth into
A crust of bread, so the uppermost sank
His teeth into the brain of the lower.
If old books carry any truth, this must
Have been how Tydeus gnawed the severed
Head of Menalippus in his rage.
‘You,’ I shouted, ‘you on top, what fury
Makes you suck the very marrow from that
Meat, what hatred feeds your appetite?
If you’ve good reason to take such revenge,
Tell me what it is, and I will repay
Your trust, repeating your words in the world
Above, if my tongue doesn’t dry up first.’