The Murder Of Cliona

Written for the "Emergency Edition" of the PPP last year; the Murder of CLiona refers both to our lack of respect and blindness to our destruction of the environment and to our strangulation of spirit, and thought, in our rather greedy modernity.
This is a companion piece to Cliona of the Ninth Wave which also references destruction and survival.

The Murder of Cliona

Cliona sits by the shore
Singing songs of love and loss
Like any underdressed lady of the sea;
passing as one of them, the myths and nymphs
Brushing hair with comb and bone
While all the time, counting waves.

The Ninth one is still hers. She yet
rides the horses of the surf
And Mannanán calls her from the west;
It would be best to return
not wait and hide and hope
for cornucopias of adoration

But she clings on still, a languid
survivor on a rock.
Connla calls by, Sinnan at his side;
they have long ago given up on us,
our ways beyond the
comprehension of mere gods.

They beg her, leave. Come with us
Into the glittering sunsets, into the
Land of Promises. Leave behind
the heartbreak of rejection. Sing with us
once more, don’t let them
poison you here, where you sit.

It’s true her hair is dull
her eyes are swollen and her lips
chaffed. O! mortals, you are killing
Her, killing Cliona of the Ninth Wave.
And yet she sits and waits,
Refusing to drown her hope.


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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