Translated from the Greek

Translated from the Greek

Gerard Smyth

When the Church of the Blessed Sacrament
(it was once The Red Bank restaurant)
was closed and sold and became unhallowed
Christ moved out to a new address across the river
where he suffers the cold coming in from the Liffey
when the doors are opened.
Sometimes he has to endure a busker
still learning the chords, rehearsing the blues,
keening for coins on O’Connell Bridge.
On Good Friday, with his hands and feet
nailed to the cross, he must listen again to the story
of his own humiliation, a friend’s betrayal.
His favourite version is in The Gospel of John
that begins in the Kidron Valley but moves on
and on and on until nothing is ever the same again.

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Gerard Smyth
Poet

Gerard is a Dublin poet whose tenth collection is The Sundays of Eternity (2020, Dedalus Press).

Photography by Grant Thomas