Personal

Another Time, Another Place
Arkaig
Distant Thunder
Farewell to Six Loved Ones
Father
For Anke
Instantaneous
Metamorphosis
Naked Autumn
Oceanus 
Rebirth
Requiem for an Ulsterman
Solitude in A
West Church, Bangor

Northern Ireland

A Child of the Troubles
Discovery of St Anne's
Donegal Pass
For Love in a Lost Place
Lamb's Conduit
Red
These are the Days
Troubled Times
Coming to Terms

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Stepping back from our common ground and well-lit thoroughfares
I dare along William's sacred ground.
This street has changed, since, no longer daubed, charred, closed.
I confess a slight unease - despite it all -
That sidestreets could hide so much.
Kids run out from the youth club;
Murals, clean and proud, force a pause to absorb this fragment of history,
To admire the passion of belief.
Three halleluias greet me as a shaft of light - and hope? -
Stabs into the darkness, seeps into this dull street
Lighting upon a non-alcoholic bar.

I walk toward the neutral trading ground,
Away from my community? my traditions?
I touched the city tonight.
A greeted policeman hurries by
And I start, but not aghast,
At something else remembered from the past:
"Bang bang you're dead,
Fifty bullets in your head."
A child's life is so short in this home.

(C) Phili Ralph Johnston
Belfast, September 1993