A Prayer for The Monsignor

A Prayer for the Monsignor

Monsignor

I remember you

The way you strode into our classroom

Your mouth full of tombstones,

Your thin lips full of the grave's punishments,

Death strode in beside you with a cold wind

And our young limbs stiffened

As we felt the corpse's grip within ourselves

One grey afternoon

Or another

You asked us all  for news

And I stuck up my hand

And told in all sincerity

How in my room at night

I saw a statue of the Virgin

Filling up with light

You scowled

And said what I had seen

Was nothing but a childish dream

Impossible!

Impossible!

You said

I was nine years old and full of talk

And knowing that I had been awake

Knowing it was vision and not dream

Knowing it wasn't lie or mistake

I told again what I had seen

The truth of light in a plastic queen

A liar  I was

A blasted little liar's what you said

And whacked a wooden ruler

Off the back of my head

And whacked again

A liar a liar you said

Monsignor

I'm still here to peddle dirt

You're ten years rotting in the ground

Ten years crumbling into earth

I hope you found your  mouldy god

But guess you're mostly in the sod

Imagination knows no law

Vision's way cannot be barred

The day after you struck me

I pissed in the churchyard