Trevor Joyce: The Fall

CONTENT="irish poetry, Irish poetry, Ireland, Irish poets, Irish poems, poetry in Ireland, innovative poetry, experimental poetry, alternative poetry, avant-garde, contemporary poetry, modernist poetry, neo-modernist, neomodernist">

The Fall

I have mouthed names
that are names no longer,
draw no reply now
only hard silence and an image
of graven stone.

Yew-trees, evergreen,
viridian intensity of growth;
gravity derived from dirt.

The names draw no reply,
only a silence in the mind,
movement of smoke.
familiar shadows that are only smoke.

The sun marks time
among the evergreens:
posture of green fire.

Stone cracked in the jaws of ice,
splintered, grinding,
mixed with moisture,
becoming dirt.

There is no grave memorial in carven stone.
There is one gravity.

The names falling from use
down into stone,
down into my mind.
There is no grave memorial in the future of my mind.

All names will fall from use.