Patron Saint of Things That Didn't Exist
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| St. Patrick's Day in Southie 2025 - Boston Globe |
Patron Saint of Things That Didn’t Exist
I sit in the corner of a loud Boston Irish pub
smelling of wet wool and confident lies,
listening to a man explain me
as if I were a trick he learned from a better magician.
He says I drove the snakes into the sea.
I sip something dark and forgiving and let the room enjoy itself.
There were never snakes there.
Not one.
Not a single scaled inconvenience slithering through grass.
The island was scrubbed clean by ice long before I arrived—
cold thorough as a sermon,
water rising later like a locked door that forgot to include reptiles.
And yet, here I am—patron saint of pest control
for animals that never booked passage.
Another round arrives.
The story improves.
Now I am standing on a hill, staff in hand,
arguing theology with wildlife.
I let them have it.
The truth is quieter, and far less cinematic.
I came back to Ireland after it broke me once.
Kidnapped, herding animals,
learning the language of wind and loneliness
before I ever learned how to preach.
No snakes.
Just people.
People with gods older than my certainty,
rituals that didn’t ask my permission,
beliefs rooted deep as oak trees
and just as difficult to move.
Conversion is not a chase scene.
It is slower.
More awkward.
Full of long conversations
and small compromises that never make it into legend.
But snakes—
snakes are convenient.
In the stories, they hiss like bad habits.
They coil like metaphor.
They become everything uncomfortable about the past
that a future would rather not negotiate with.
So I drove them out, they say.
What I drove, if anything, was an idea—
or tried to—
and even that is generous.
The room laughs.
Someone buys me a drink for a miracle I never performed.
I raise the glass.
To absence.
To invention.
To the peculiar human need
to turn slow change into a dramatic exit.
Outside, the night presses in like ink waiting for a better story.
Inside, I sit with my borrowed myth, watching it grow scales,
watching it learn to slither,
watching it become more believable than the truth ever was.
If I had known this would be my legacy,
I might have at least brought a snake with me.
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Bravo, Chris. I love how you set the stage:
ReplyDelete"listening to a man explain me
as if I were a trick he learned from a better magician." Also love you speaking as St. Patrick. Your poem is a potent potable.
Your Irish pub in Boston sounds similar to the pubs I remember from living in Ireland, especially the smell of ‘wet wool and confident lies’. I love the sibilance in ‘not a single scaled inconvenience slithering through grass’, that you wrote from St Patrick’s point of view, and the wonderful line ‘learning the language of wind and loneliness’.
ReplyDeleteChris I love how you strip the glossy veneer off a legendary figure to reveal a weary, human core. feels like a conversation with a ghost who is tired of his own statue - excellent work🙌💚
ReplyDelete"To absence.
ReplyDeleteTo invention.
To the peculiar human need
to turn slow change into a dramatic exit"
Here here, I can toast to that! Those lines resonated with me looking back at most historical liars, cheats, and history rewrites. Beautifully done and crafted!
My favorite line in a poem of nothing but spectacular lines: "I sip something dark and forgiving and let the room enjoy itself" Cheers!
ReplyDeleteFantastic poem, Chris! I loved your last line. Ha!
ReplyDeleteYvette M Calleiro :-)
Great way to Brillo things gone rusty in the hands of lesser magicians.
ReplyDelete