Derek Mahon - The Last of the Fire Kings
I want to be
Like the man who descends
At two milk churns
With a bulging
String bag and vanishes
Where the lane turns,
Or the man
Who drops at night
From a moving train
And strikes out over the fields
Where fireflies glow
Not knowing a word for the language.
Either way, I am
Through with history -
Who lives by the sword
Dies by the sword.
Last of the fire kings, I shall
Break with tradition and
Die by my own hand
Rather than perpetuate
The barbarous cycle.
Five years I have reigned
During which time
I have lain awake each night
And prowled by day
In the sacred grove
For fear of the usurper,
Perfecting my cold dream
Of a place out of time,
A palace of porcelain
Where the frugivorous
Inheritors recline
In their rich fabrics
Far from the sea.
But the fire-loving
People, rightly perhaps,
Will not countenance this,
Demanding that I inhabit,
Like them, a world of
Sirens, bin-lids
And bricked-up windows -
Not to release them
From the ancient curse
But to die their creature and be thankful.