Signs Such As Were Sent and Justified by Matthew John Henry Hardin

It may be some kind of death-wish to insist

or wish to be born again under a wandering star

or assume the mantle of John the Baptist

but after Lee spurred us in a barn-sour car

from the wilds of Dixie to The Regal, Limavady,

I got plenty sympathy for stalls ’n a flea-pit round 1973

that swells to the tune of If a man is as good as his word,

as good as his word is he, he’s good enough for me

and saw, still see ‘fore he got near the old rugged cross,

nailed 39 articles, or 40 shades to the tree,

or opened the newly Revised English Version,

the preacher’s adversary rise, no renegade Comanche

⁃ Matthew John Henry Hardin –

rising like a mighty lion off a pew from one knee

come down to water to drink, come down to the river to pray

for and agin enemies of the word - which leads me to think,

in the blink of an eye, he’d not give a toss, bat or blink,

but had risen ‘mongst us, a man of sorrowful conviction, a bob-cat

waving a family Bible like a big black fedora or hat

to prophecy, testify, apply a brake, kill a line dancing rattlesnake,

saying make no mistake if King James was good enough for St Paul

tis good enough for me and must’ve been thereabouts or just after,

comes back clear as yesterday - the radio killing ‘How Great Thou Art’

by the Rev. William McCrae, The Eagles’ ‘Last Resort’

and ‘Me & Bobby Magee’, to play a momentary stay

‘gainst confusion in Lone Star, how far are you out tonight?

I want you to shine down on me – ‘til I think maybe

he’s still holed up out there, somewhere, Matthew John Henry

in a wilderness or by-way, some unauthorized highway,

intent on baptism by fire with plenty scope for testimony,

having risen again to clear the way, part the crowd,

steer his hoss and un-gainsaid shadow or leastways plough

down the narrow pan handle of Main Street, Limavady,

and it may be a kind of death-wish, long out of season,

to agree that the light by a hard-ware store, Marshall Howe’s

grocery or Muldoon’s saloon door or whatever you chose

to live by is a word justified, chosen, predestined in that close-run thing

when you use the light of reason to reason out what differs preaching

nothing under the sun from breaking a new colt in

or the damn close shave between squander or save, spur and bit,

ploughing your own wide furrow, digging your own narrow grave,

for did not John Henry, like Robinson Crusoe, randomly open holy text

to decide by dice rolls or Three-Card Monte what he’d do next

for sure, as did Watt Tyler - no tike or tick in a bedroll, not behind the door

when it comes to mounting, tailoring his ride or war to the knife ‘longside Wycliffe,

saved, a chosen bride’s man, groom to eternal life, deputized morning star, a Lollard,

which brings me to the Gap of the North where I’ve a rear view

cleared of all but a horse-box and damn few rugged trees you’d pollard

or cross for new life west of the Pecos or up on the Black Pig’s Dyke,

which makes its own play as I pass, cast an eye on a bolting foal,

the radio switching from ‘Yo-Dill-Lay-Hay’ and High Country to rock’n roll,

as I’m passing through such historic slopes on a chancy steal

for kid or calfskin ‘mong billygoats - for whose woods these are I begin

to think I know – Hugh O’Neil, no slow truckin logger but longtime

open-air blogger for true commonweal, right of way

for wild geese or snipe in the woods, lonesome pine -

no turn pikes in Fosses or Frews lookin ‘2 euros 80 dimes for the toll’ -

ah, such historic slopes long since littered in brown envelopes,

soup kitchens stewing life from the blood of the lamb

to join sausage to soda, slice pig from ham, sort sheep and goats,

though did not even the Great O’Neill, first in the van to the rath,

a man who’d lief bath in a Cookstown stream or wash using a frying pan,

ask What’s that helluv a bad skunk-smell round a pot of broth

by Applegreen? just as you might still ask what shall it profit

a man to gain the world, and lose his soul for eternal wrath?

for did I not imagine as on a silver screen Matthew John Henry

Hardin sayin, rising from a pew of snoring racoons as ‘twere yesterday,

stay your hand from suchlike wonders, revised signs of greed,

or signs to ‘Play Here for the Euro-Millions and National Lottery’,

which waylay, pistol-whip a brother from making hay

into tumbleweed, tumbleweed – for does a man need that much money?

did apaches fill hands to collect more colts than they’d need

when an honesty box got a sign for locusts and wild honey? –

which brings me passing thru’ ‘til ticker tape near Newry

- as round a snake-pit in the union or roadside crime

roped off an accident waiting to happen to a trailer of spuds

that backslid through a tail gate bound slack by bailer twine -

re-routed the broad motorway to narrower hedgerows, new wonders,

loose cylinders, ball and cap, Jonesboro GAA and signs

saying ‘Now is the appointed time’ or ‘Eternity Where?’

which sure ain’t no gaucho ad. in Dromad for maternity wear

but leads some to swear there ain’t fire escapes in hell,

to suggest a man much driven by much wear and tear

on the assured wheels of a Bedford or Ford Otesan,

to suggest neighbours who stare at a shadow steering by

his own lights in an outhouse under a bare bulb that burns half the night –

who surely ask ‘Does he ever sleep? What’s he doing in there?’,

to suggest a man with miles to go and promises to keep

who’s thought long on nails and texts, but seeks no permission,

to carry the can, paint pot, oil gun on an open-air mission,

that shuns vexed signs of the times like ‘Buy two, get one free’,

who’ll give no quarter, grant no remission

to the empty exegesis of Eurospar’s supermarket trolleys

that never looked likely to carry a donkey through strewn palms

let alone the baby Jesus into Castlewellan or small townlands,

to suggest 4 x 4, cut for sign in badlands, shaped in church windows,

carry as much conviction or a sense of sin as would’ve pleased John Calvin,

to suggest gold curled shavings planned to lie by a bin

a power drill, white spirit corked in a bottle of lemonade,

a piece loaded and flask teed up for a latter-day raid

with a sign saying ‘the summer is over, the harvest ended

and still you are not saved’, a bitter pill for which nobody’d ask

to be admonished but he’s tasked with what you gotta know

from Abilene to Ravensdale, from vaqueros to Ballymaloe,

every son of a bitch gotta eat gonna reap what they sow,

which brings me to the Ponderosa Bar, fording the Roe,

your collar felt in Glenshane by the hot breath

of Matthew John Henry coming down a valley, a valley so low

that late in the evening you’ll hear the wind blow,

or see a nailed text, see a shadow of death,

kith and kin to a check point interrogation

about where you’re coming from or going next

or how the hell you’ll escape by neglectin’ so great salvation

or not knowing, huckleberry friend, the whole constitution

weren’t nailed down by Geronimo’s warpaint on some reservation,

or by loco lambs busted out ornery from some kinda thicket,

or by O’Neill, by a burn, by a sacrificial river of no return

by a sticky wicket, by a lough with latitude, by a one-way ticket,

but by texts where the firewater of free will stays put, is mighty fine

so long’ as tis nailed down, not tethered by bailer twine,

and lassoed to no kick ‘gainst cactus, pricks, predestination,

found by faith alone in gad and bit for a bang-tail, or justified line

or bulletproof, weatherproof sign by John Henry Hardin

even though today’s lack of light promises no little rain,

some blood on our hands, and too much sky in the margin.

Notes Horses can be barn-sour (loving stalls and speeding up on the way home) or bang-tail (wild mustangs).‘Cut for sign’ means to look for a trail on the ground. A ‘cap and ball’ and ‘cylinder’ are found on a six-shooter. A ‘gad’ is a spur. The lyric ‘A Man Is As Good As His Word’ was the theme tune of the western ‘Comanche’ (1956). A dialogue in ‘Chisholm’ goes – ‘James Pepper: There no law west of Dodge and no God west of the Pecos. John Chisum: Wrong, Mr Pepper. Because no matter where people go, sooner or later there’s the law. And sooner or later they find God’s already been there.’

Photographs by Stephen Wilson and poems by John Brown

Looking at God is a series of landscape photographs made at locations around Ireland where signs with Bible verses have been nailed to trees or lamp posts. These hand painted warnings proclaim the judgment of God and question how prepared the reader is for their seemingly imminent death. Their often bucolic locations seem directly at odds with the urgent directives for onlookers to consider their mortality. However if we look at these scenes through the words of the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach who said “All gods, and hence all religions, are simply projections of human desires,” we begin to sense an alternative narrative, one where these proclamations become frames to build a god inside. Here the painted signs are a launching pad to begin visualising the words and what such a place might look like. Drawing inspiration from John Martin’s famous Last Judgment paintings and the the romantic spirit of optimism in the new Arcadia of the Hudson River Painters like Cole and Whittaker. Here we are looking at a landscape which is lit up like a stage ready for a lead actor who is for some reason absent.