Page 38 of Hang on St. Christopher

Barefoot Magnus

by the river

the water flowing backward

I am carried

on the familiar current

to the memory place

where Magnus Barefoot

King of Norway

Earl of Orkney

Lord of the Isles

was ambushed by the Ulstermen

finishing thus the Viking Age

in revenge for Bangor

and Lindisfarne

and the slaughter and the slaves.

Red Magnus, scourge of Europe

from the Russian steppe to Iceland

dead in a sheugh in darkest Ulster

his back arrowed like a hedgehog

his head lofted high on a poleaxe

and then was Magnus buried with honor on a hill

near Saint Patrick

by the River Quoile

for we, men of Ulster, so flawed in many ways

are proficient in ending things.

Not bad for a dilettante. More work required. Obviously.

I slunk into the living room with my coffee, turned on the TV, and immediately muted it again when the news came on. I went to the record player and put on REM’sOut of Time, a terrific little album with only one dud on side 2. I had heard ominous talk at the HMV in Glasgow that REM had releasedOut of Timeonly as a novelty LP and that from now on their music would be available only in CD format. Which meant, of course, that I would never buy it.

“I keep telling everyone CDs are a fad,” I said to the same invisible cat I had talked to earlier.

I finished my breakfast, had a shave, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, and called Crabbie. He wasn’t going to like what I had to say, but I needed him.

“Hello,” he said.

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