Foyle Street (1)

Sinister it was, with its windows black and barred
gawping at me from across the street.
Relentless as it consumed its prey
protesting, as it slithered into the arched mouth.

Intense the mingling and numerous the shapes
that passed in that narrow confine.
Where man and beast, outsider and insider
jostled for their rightful place.

Cars, and the Red Hand of Ulster.
Hooves, in dry laboured clatter.
Pigs pleading. Hay akimbo.
and the wide eyes of Cantrell & Cochrane.
And the sleek electric bread van.
Barrels, refined shapes layer on layer passing.
People. And the skittish horse,
its cartwheels twisting like windmills.
Space - Silence - Fear -
and
Defiance!

__________


© Cormac McCloskey

My grandmother's home in Foyle Street stood opposite a four story mill. And Folye Street was a commercial centre and main thoroughfare through the centre of Derry. Reputedly there were twenty two pubs on the street, besides a shirt factory, the Melville Hotel, Biggers abattoir and an assortment of produce warehouses that ran along the line of the quay. As a small boy I often stood on the doorstep watching the goings on in the street. It was all so different from the clean clear and often sleepy, seaside town of Portrush, where I grew up. But it was a captivating place none the less. And the dramatic ending of the poem relates to those moments when the street would be clear of traffic and in the distance you could hear the crack of the drovers whip. And though I was sometimes fearful that an animal might take a wrong turn into grandma's house, I held my ground as the cattle, necks stretched out, streamed past the house.