On parade
When we sallied forth, it was blue o’clock in the morning
after the night before.
The Malahide Road was quiet,
immortal wheat standing from everlasting to everlasting.
Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air
where fallen archangels flung the stars,
bronze by gold. Just a flash like that,
a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming.
With ratsteeth bared, he muttered
“Their last hour came like a thief in the night,
worth double the money, the stars and the moon,
and comets with long tails.”
I tackled him this morning on belief
and the whole jingbang lot.
“What’s the best news?
Who could know the truth?”
“But wait till I tell you,” he said.
“Wait a while. Hold hard
the act of a hero,” he said.
“Who has passed here before me?”
His eyes looked quickly, ghost bright.
“All I want is a little time,”
smiled with unseen coldness.
“Shatter me you who can!”
He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking trees,
where pigeons roocoocooed,
stood still in midstreet and brought his hat low.
The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange St.,
the most historic spot in all Dublin
swallowed by a closing door.
This Cento uses phrases taken unaltered from Chapter 10 of James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” pages 210-244, 1922 text, Oxford University Press