A Conversation About Dante in Belfast
Well, there we were, well after that war,
in the midpoint air between
Shankhill and Falls, you
talking me through Dante`s circles of hell
and the doomed ones he met there,
serenely wading the streams of ghosts
or storming the crazies in faces and bars
along the road where our living flesh
was driven past hearts` control,
me circling and glancing now and then
at a midpoint spot of sky in time
and wondering about what had likely
spilled there, guiding me beyond
to metal masts rigid on hillsides,
the slapping of wind in the rigging
of yachts in the harbour, satellites
far up winking on clear nights.