Simon MacCulloch

Nuns with names like tropical diseases
Hover in the walls of whispered rooms.
In the garden prayer-soaked soil releases
Fragrances of subterranean blooms.
Blessed is the fruiting of their wombs.

Window-glass is winking in the tower,
Chipping out a twitch of spastic sky.
In the garden rosary bushes flower,
Beady with the days until they die.
Blessed is the plucking of the eye.

Mazes where the almost-dead stand waiting
Writhe behind the doors of weed-grown brick. 
In the garden Minos is creating
Trees of Knowledge, lush and serpent-thick.
Blessed is the odour of the sick.

Reverend Mother moulds the keys to cellars
Where the deepest-probing roots are fed.
In the garden all of you are dwellers
In an Eden grown from living dead.
Blessed is the taste of boiling lead.

 

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SIMON MACCULLOCH has published hundreds of poems in a variety of outlets, including literary, genre, humour and religious publications. He lives in London.