The Wake of Mealy Peg

By Mark Farrell

 

He was that drunk!
            Uncle Ger slipped
and tumbled down the bank and into
the pond
and the ducks and the geese honk-honk-
honked
               and Glennie gave a seal bark
               but I froze with fear
because
            Uncle Ger heard
            and came sputtering and
swearing
up the hill
                   but through the rum
and the summer dark
he couldn’t see a damn
and our kids’ legs carried us quickly around
the barn and to the well-lit house
and there was a fiddle
accompanied by a wail-
                                          ing woman
who was being comforted by all
the other women and
                                       the fiddle quieted down for awhile,
almost everyone there being well-lit too
– the whisky and the gin and the skreech and the beer
and in the
simple coffin
lay
Mealy Peg
all white hair and liverspots,
shut eyes, crow’s feet
and dead
                  and Glennie and his goosenecking around
reached in and did something fast in the coffin
and nobody saw it but I did and suddenly
my eyes were
                          as big as silver dollars and
we scrambled
for the next room
so we wouldn’t wet our pants
then and there

            and Aunt Eva grabbed us by the kitchen with
both her skinny arms
and gave us cake
and we thanked her politely
and Cousin Charlie about eighteen then
gave us a
                   sip-sip of whisky
and we shook and shivered and his laugh was a high squeak
as we leapt up, asking for more –
                                                                and then there was Uncle Ger swinging
back in
               through the screen door
trying to look dignified,
but he had dried some in the hot night after all,
and he was eyeing every kid closely
trying to read them but
then the shout went up:

J-e-s-u-s, Mary and Jo-seph!

and everyone was to the coffin and
clapping their hands over their
wide open mouths or just gasping
and somebody swore badly but nobody did anything till
Aunt Marie’s darting hand
plucked one of Granddad’s cigars out
from between
old Peg’s
blue lips
            and I looked at my father
rocking gently on his heels
under the naked light bulb
                                                its dangling string in
his already thin hair
and his eyes twinkling wet and dancing
because he always said that
Mealy Peg was the meanest woman
ever born with
a tongue and a wooden spoon

 

Previously published by The New Quarterly, Vol. 18 No. 2, Summer 1998

 

After Hsü Kan1
By Mark Farrell

 

Since you, sir, went away
I have not put to use any of the gifts you have so generously given me.

I will save them for your return.

The finely-crafted hair-pins will stay in their box.
I will neither burn the incense,
nor wear the sweet perfume.
The precious stones, too, will wait, nestled in their cloth coverings.

My bed will remain half cold.

And eventually, I am sure, I will long for you.

But:  Since you, sir, went away
I have breathed a heavy sigh – the wind swaying the tree tops.
My heart is light – the clouds race across the sky.
Tears wet
my burning face
like snow
melting in the mountains in spring.

(My deep blush like the newly-risen sun.)

For with you here, sir,
when would I find the time
to attempt lines such as these.

 

1  Much imitated Chinese poet (171-218 C.E.)

 

Previously published by Poetry Nottingham Vol. 58 No. 1, Spring 2004
+ Manhattan Literary Review No. 2 Summer 2004

 

 

Improvisation
By Mark Farrell

 

 

(if) a saxophonist
is lingering, holding,
waiting
             to slide his breath
in
between the
                     drums, bass
rhythm

I will jump him

and
insert
a smile

there

to a brunette I don’t know

and

(a well-blown sax) and

she smiles back, slight
(but)
her scowling blonde friend
(with her back to me now) – is only a flower
print
dress

sadly dreaming of
South American boys

Previously published by Oxford Magazine Vol. 14, 2000
+ Fuselit No. 11, Autumn 2007

 

Who is it?
By Mark Farrell

 

A magazine in a new foreign language – Czech –
            it takes me time to translate
even the simplest of captions
but – yeah – under this picture – it’s:
           
               “Who is it?” 

So, a contest –
                                 a photograph of someone famous
– a woman – Czech, I guess –
half the face blurred to conceal her identity,
and touched up
                              to make it sag
and strange, this,
but one of her eyes is             wandering

Who could it be?
(And what will I win?)

I scan the text,
           see that international word – “police” –
in this language:  “policie”

(and then) stupid me – I figure it out –

her face is that way from

decomposition

jesus jesus
christ
she’s dead,

(the magazine closed)

but
(the shame) as
I open it again –
                                   and that’s blood sprinkled
down her neck
                                   and blouse

(the magazine closed again)

                as our young orange cat
washes herself
                under the hot reading-lamp
– I grab her to me close and hold her
because it’s so early in the morning and it’s so dark and

because my beautiful girlfriend is still sleeping,

she is so beautiful
when she is sleeping –

(Look at all that I’ve won.)

 

Previously published by Neon Highway No. 11,November 2005
+ The Hurricane Review Vol. 1 No. 3, 2005

 

John
By Mark Farrell

 

the old cemetery
will take no more boarders,
there’s only room for the past of this town,
the people who were here before
the subdivisions, the paved sidestreets
       the cleared apple orchards:

my mother is one of these old ones,
owns a plot here
            but had never been

to the ground
that holds her eldest,

John

 

                        * * *

 

                        We searched in quiet hope for
the small wooden cross
that my father shaped
with his beginning hands

but found only the soft on our faces,
the wind coming off the sea

         my mother had never talked of this
and I, almost prompting,
stupidly said,
                       “It must have been a very sad time.”
“I kept...” she started,

stopped,
the wet, at her eyes,
then,
falling

           I shook my head to recover
quickly told her, that maybe it was better this way,
told her what my university told me –
                                                                                                                             

what headstones are really for:

                                                        for the living –
to be protected from
the haunting:

                         so that when the dead wake
from their forgetful sleep,
they will see their stone –
remember who they were and
go back to
sleep

             but my brother had no stone
only that makeshift, tiny cross
and it melted into the earth
decayed apart
into grass

       but the grass is very beautiful,
       even in the Fall

“My life was hard even then,”  my mother’s
voice cracking

 

                        * * *

 

So, John,
                if my teachers were right
and the cross could not keep you down,
you are lost
                     in this silly passing world

But witness our mother and me
and remember,

do not be jealous of what you missed:

plates smashed in anger, mortgages,
broken collarbones, birthday ice-cream,
car accidents, steeped tea,
church bells
                                                                                                                      

because Mother is right:

life can be hard

 

And again,
John,
         there she is,
beautiful her
as we wander
(home)
(please) remember who you were and are

and
Mother,
            dearest mother,
dry your tears

go back to sleep

 

Previously published by JAAM No. 17, May,2002
+ Borderlines, Winter 2003
+ Illya’s Honey Vol. 12 No. 2, Summer 2006

 

Mark Farrell is a Canadian, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, who’s been living in the Czech Republic for over fifteen years.  He teaches at Charles University in Prague.

His work has appeared in many journals throughout the world – most recently in Read This (Montana State University), SNReview (Fairfield, CT + http://www.snreview.org) and Dream Catcher (Lincoln, UK). Selected future publications include: Stand Magazine (Leeds University, UK) and Caveat Lector (http://www.caveat-lector.org).