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There are Days

1929 –

2016

for Lawrence Sullivan

There are days when 
one should be able 
to pluck off one's head 
like a dented or worn 
helmet, straight from 
the nape and collarbone 
(those crackling branches!)

and place it firmly down 
in the bed of a flowing stream. 
Clear, clean, chill currents 
coursing and spuming through 
the sour and stale compartments 
of the brain, dimmed eardrums, 
bleared eyesockets, filmed tongue.

And then set it back again 
on the base of the shoulders:
well tamped down, of course, 
the laved skin and mouth, 
the marble of the eyes 
rinsed and ready
for love; for prophecy?

John Montague was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 28, 1929, to James Montague, an Ulster Catholic from County Tyrone. James immigrated to the United States in 1925, where his brother, John, was already residing. Montague’s paternal grandfather, also named John, had been appointed a justice of the peace by Queen Victoria. Montague’s mother Mary Montague (née Carney), sometimes called Molly, immigrated to the U.S. three years after her husband with her three sons in tow. Montague lived in New York City during the Great Depression.

About John Montague

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More by this poet

Silences

for Elizabeth

1
Poetry is a weapon, and should be used,
though not in the crudity of violence.
It is a prayer before an unknown altar,
a spell to bless the silence.

2
There is a music beyond all this,
beyond all forms of grievance,
where anger lays its muzzle down
into the lap of silence.

3
Or some butterfly script,
fathomed only by the other,
as supple fingers draw
a silent message from the tangible.

John Montague

2012

White Water

for Line McKie

The light, tarred skin
of the currach rides
and receives the current, 
rolls and responds to
the harsh sea swell. 

Inside the wooden ribs
a slithering frenzy; a sheen
of black-barred silver-
green and flailing mackerel:
the iridescent hoop
of a gasping sea trout. 

As a fish gleams most
fiercely before it dies,
so the scales of the sea-hag
shine with a hectic
putrescent glitter:

luminous, bleached—
white water—
that light in the narrows
before a storm breaks.

John Montague

2005

Poems

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There are Days

More by this poet

Silences

White Water

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