“Dead Badger” was the first poem in a collection I called Dam Bursting from 1998 ©. My first trip to The Gothenburg Irish Festival, in 1997, resulted in a rush of poetry, shortly after returning home to Northern Ireland. These 14 poems written in a concentrated period of two weeks, enabled me to focus on written work with a strong Belfast theme.
They look at my identity, being Northern, from a Presbyterian background and, in many ways, just not fitting in. Feeling like an outsider.
In 1998 I returned to Gothenburg and performed all these poems as part of the festival at Haga Forsamlingshem 28.2.98. It was a good thing to do.
The year before, at the last minute, I had been substituted for another speaker at a Seamus Heaney poetry reading event at Silvi’s Palestinian Restaurant, Iron Square, Gothenburg. This was my first workshop and a very postive baptism of fire. (St. Brigid be praised!)
This experience, in Sweden, away from the negative mindset gave me the shove, to get out there. The release of self confidence and self esteem to see that I had something worthwhile and the drive to use it. I haven’t stopped since. Though, I can only see that now, with hindsight.
Dead Badger.
I lift its sorry head, up off the hard roadside.
No one told it, that it was unsafe to cross.
The mud and welt of the car tread,
Still fresh, upon its beautiful coat.
Its back pads face skyward.
Dark leathery pads, extended mini-gorilla feet.
Its head, tucked away, searching for sleep,
To ease the pain,
Buried beneath its rough grizzled shoulders.
Many years ago, on my last journey to watch The Twelfth
For the sake of my mother,
Hoping for a peaceful day,
We stood across the road from King William’s small plot
Of land, a park, a triangle of grass and trees.
Snoutlike, sniffing at Shaftesbury Square.
We waited for the bands to come.
And as they came, their sound swelled within my young heart and mind.
THUMP JAGA THUMP, JAGA THUMPA JAGA THUMP,
JAGA JAGA, JAGA JAGA, THUMPA JAGA THUMP !
All was well, for a while, until . . .
A father, with his young child,
Attempted to cross, in front of the oncoming Orange Lodge.
Seeing it now, I wonder . . .
Did the wee boy need to the toilet ?
Was he just hungry ?
Had the pair of them just seen
The boy’s mother in the crowd ?
I still see it, cast in front of me.
SALMON & SON, leaping the solid cascade of Orange-isms,
And almost reaching the sanctuary of the calm upper pool.
At the far side, he was pulled down.
With violence and disbelief, raging in their tiny eyes.
Cable snapped brutality,
Performed for our dull gaze.
Amazed at the old man,
Rushing up from the back of the phalanx,
To brandish all his old hurts,
Frothing like a mad dog, for the “Englishman”
To stab at the young father,
To prod with his honourable, Christian,
Beribboned axe.
The son, whimpering,
Washing his fresh hurts from the tarmac,
With his own tears,
Until this little family, honourably beaten, (Part of our rich heritage,)
Were allowed to scuttle and melt,
Like two half eaten, discarded ice creams,
( We call them “pokes” here, )
Back through the host of embarrassed minds,
That said nothing,
That did nothing.
Who watched the pageant unfold,
A blood orange.
I lift the dead Badger, now,
Up off the side of the road,
Wrapped, gently, in old newspapers,
And quietly say to it…..
“ You’ll be okay with me.”
And set it with respect,
Down into the dark safety of my car boot.
No one told it,
“ You can’t cross here. “
Another Badger,
Late for his tea,
Resting in an unexpected grave.
I remember a similar parade-crossing act in the late ’70s when a junior doctor dared to challenge the sanctity of the procession by crossing from the City Hospital to Fitzwilliam St (Lisburn Road) not far from the small park you mention in the poem. No violence ensued but he was given a dressing-down by a gent brandishing a sword who was unimpressed with his “excuse” that he had been working for the past 24 hours and wanted some sleep.
Thanks Derek. I’m sure there are many people with their own particular snap shot from these times and from today too. To accept the idea that “you cannot pass, you should not pass, you must not pass” in front of any type of march is to take on a saddle of fear upon your back like a well trained horse. I believe a horse has to be “broken” first, before any saddle can be effectively applied to its back.
This is a case in point. The training and the acceptance of an idea through fear and the threat of violence. It makes the world go round here, maybe more so in the past. Our local currency of violence. But the fear still lurks amongst us, to make us (the horse) accept the most toxic of
horsemen.
As a community, we remain “broken” until we shake off the rider and his crop of fear.