Requiem

Mourning poems

Síofra McSherry, Emma Dai'an Wright

• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781912915408
• eBook ISBN: 9781912915415
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Written in memory of her mother, who died of motor neurone disease in 2012, the poems of Requiem roughly cover the timespan of an illness, death, and burial. The formal structure is based on the Catholic Requiem Mass as it has been set as a choral piece by Giuseppe Verdi, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé, and many others. The poems quote from other classical and folk works about the underworld and the passage into death, juxtaposing the engagement with the old text with modern references.

Winner of the Poetry Book Society Spring Pamphlet Choice.

2. Kyrie

Lord have mercy upon her
Christ have mercy upon her
Day have mercy upon her
Night have mercy upon her
Bed have mercy upon her
Hoist have mercy upon her
Catheter have mercy upon her
Needle have mercy upon her
Gastrostomy have mercy upon her
Citalopram have mercy upon her
Riluzole have mercy upon her
Morphine have mercy upon her [...]

1.  INTROITUS

AD TE OMNIS CARO VENIET

To you all flesh shall come

and before you all flesh shall cave.

Witness the bleed-out

of desire, the avalanche of synapses,

the extinction of the will. Unprepared

we shall wake to your all-blinding light,

we who carried flashlights and thought

we knew the sun. Your veils

shall set fast our limbs,

swaddle our mouths and noses, our eyes

and ears and skin. We shall speak nothing,

hear nothing, see nothing. Nothing shall be known.

Before you sense is scattered and meaning lies in ruin.

Before you come none willingly

and from you shall go none.

Hear our prayer.

2.  KYRIE

KYRIE ELEISON

CHRISTE ELEISON

Lord have mercy upon her

Christ have mercy upon her

Day have mercy upon her

Night have mercy upon her

Bed have mercy upon her

Hoist have mercy upon her

Catheter have mercy upon her

Needle have mercy upon her

Gastrostomy have mercy upon her

Citalopram have mercy upon her

Riluzole have mercy upon her

Morphine have mercy upon her

Neurone have mercy upon her

Tendon have mercy upon her

Atrophy have mercy upon her

Phlegm have mercy upon her

Bladder have mercy upon her

Bowel have mercy upon her

Breath have mercy upon her

Heart have mercy upon her

3.  GRADUALE

REQUIEM ÆTERNAM DONA EIS, DOMINE

Merry meet by forest road, by the smack of the side of a bus or pearl nurtured in the shell of my own breast.

Merry meet by blade or bullet, or the light of a sputtering neurone. You are never far, nor hard to find.

I offer flowers to my body that will die.

I imagine us someday sitting creased and greyed on the stoop together, rolling tobacco and reckoning scores, but today I am here to look you in the eye, and live.

4. TRACT

ABSOLVE, DOMINE,

ANIMAS OMNIUM FIDELIUM DEFUNCTORUM

AB OMNI VINCULO DELICTORUM.

The odd unbustling Wednesday

in the Faithful Departed, the craic

will be spooling nicely when – with

little warning but a rash of goose-

bumps and a zebra shadow casting

to the bar – in he’ll gangle. There’s

ones that’ve had a bad run with him;

Orpheus got drunk and lost his

grip on the subject entirely, later

being ripped apart by women. Il a

perdu son Eurydice; he caved in

to his pain. A melancholic fellow,

that, not like himself, all clatter

and tooth, as generous with his grins

as with all else. Cora tends to the wipe

and sparkle with a necromantic glint

and the garden of their talk grows

steady and blooming. Oftentimes we’ll

reach across and grab a pomegranate

seed or three when proffered, why not,

best to keep half...

Table of contents

• COVER
• OTHER BOOKS FROM THE EMMA PRESS
• TITLE PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• 1. INTROITUS
• 2. KYRIE
• 3. GRADUALE
• 4. TRACT
• 5. SEQUENTIA
• 6. OFFERTORIUM
• 7. BENEDICTUS
• 8. AGNUS DEI
• 9. COMMUNION
• 10. LIBERA ME
• 11. PIE JESU
• 12. IN PARADISUM
• LIST OF QUOTATIONS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• THE EMMA PRESS