The Surreal Life

Down deep under the waters
of Lough Neagh, can still be seen,
by those who have the gift of
fairy vision, the columns and
walls of the beautiful palaces
once inhabited by the fairy
races when they were the
gods on earth ... Giraldus
Cambrensis states that in
his time the tops of the towers
‘built after the fashion of
the country’ were distinctly
visible in calm, clear weather,
under the surface of the lake;
and still the fairies haunt the
ruins of their former splendor,
and hold festivals beneath
the waters when the full moon
is shining; for the boatmen
coming home late a night
have often heard sweet music
rising up from beneath the
waves and the sound
of laughter, and seen glimmering
lights far down under the water,
where the ancient fairy palaces
are supposed to be.

-- F.S. Wilde, Ancient Legends,
Mystic Charms and Superstitions
of Ireland

But LaLa Land is just
the half of it, fool’s gold
the literalist of soul
wears out his teeth
in chomping,
the manic seem of
fairy phosphor evil only
when we dive into
the madness of the fall.
Drowned angels are just
the half of it, a
Christian gloss on
how lower heavens
shine brightest in
error, making of
reverie’s wild thalamus
an oubliette of rank
devolving terror.
Let us suppose that
beneath the Christian
tale swims a wilder,
albeit darker one,
still regnant in
the drowned city
of our most ancient
dreams, a blue vale
where gods and
fathers and lost
lovers swim and
swive and merry up
a dead land’s darkest
hue, turning black
waters a silvered,
almost manic blue,
its music haunting
to hear on the shores
we wake and work
and walk down, and
far more daunting
for one prone to swilling
sweetness from all jugs.
They drink not booze
down there but
a sweeter quaff
of strange, so sweet
it never comes close
to mortal lips
though dreams are
drams of it, the flavor
by which we ink our
reveries. I sit here at
4:30 a.m. tired &
moody & nursing a
bad back & hear
an oh-so-faintest
lap of waters in the
dark outside, beyond
the sighing breeze,
blue plashings bowering
the scent of orange
blossoms now ravaging
our days from their
petite and hornlike bells.
I’m standing on that boat
beneath the moon
enthralled with the
tableau revealing in
lake waters just below,
the spires of a palace
a few leagues down
winnowed by wee folk
astride dark fishes,
circling down a lost
faith’s spire to dim
squares of pure merriment.
Beneath the keel of
sane men, beyond
the cathedral rim of
feeling any woman
I have known,
a deep tribe bequeaths
to me a surreal and
silvered gleam, a sing-
song melody I’ll never
fully quit or rid, enough
strange sweetness
to remind me--even here,
even now, despite all
mortal wearies pains
& doubts -- that the
darker part of me
is still dancing in
that watered Sidhe
in the bone light of
not ecstasy the
weirdest gleam of it,
a glint of such a
wild heaven that
I’ll never sing
the depths of it.
Something deep
in me is sufficed
by that surreal town
too strange to
actually drown
and never meant
to love or own.