I want to read you a poem from an Irish poet.
Here in Carson.
The Irish ports don't have very much to say really
in their poems about the troubles in Ireland.
But this was one poem, which I found that I liked about it.
The city is in the north are all blocked off.
You cannot drive into them.
You have to walk.
And so it's very quiet in the downtown area.
So needless to say.
You searched before you go into any store
and there are checkpoints at some major points
within the city, where you are physically searched.
Most of the time, they'll just look
at what you're carrying going into the stores.
But at the checkpoints, you are really frisked.
Women aren't really frisked though.
They just look into your purse.
It's called The Bomb Disposal.
Is it just like picking a lock with a slow deliberation
of a funeral?
Hesitating through a darkened nave until you find the answer.
Listening to the malevolent tick of its heart.
Can you read the message of the threaded veins like print.
Its bodies chart.
The city is a map of the city.
Its forbidden areas changing daily.
I find myself in a crowded taxi making deviations
from the known route.
Ending in a cul-de-sac where everyone breaks out suddenly
in whispers noting the boarded windows, the drawn blinds.