An uncanny and unfamiliar view: the sun gazing over the Sperrins.
Light granted sight and in the
smarting, sticky glow of day the range seemed endless.
Every peak,
protruding from plate like
vertebrae of the obscene Oilliphéist, aspired to pierce the clouds (had there been any) and
swelling like the ego of that Boeotian hunter, set Olympus and Rheasilvia to blushes.
An omnidirectional parsec of perpetual nihility that,
swallowing the senses,
renders proprioception void.
Everything suspended for a second or century under the watch of that inert sentinel, whose
magnitude mirrored the Cosmic Turtle.
Say some stray tenant of Mountsandel
had wandered through these ancient fields and looked, as I do, upon the eminence of this glen;
From now til then, this Precambrian master had aged but a second.
Words are feeble against this primordial Schist and cannot hope to evoke it.
But all perceived as hard then shifts; I see the hulk in its youth suffering
the divorce of Rodinia; drifting further from its peers – drowning.
Even now the car traced the scar carved in the little pinnacle.
Granted, it bore us tourists stoically on
Granite too pure for poetry.
Yet still I see, as clear as Sawel, the young stone struggling to breathe the noxious air;
Freezing and thawing with the trends of the earth and
Bearing it all alone.
No wonder it had become catatonic.
How fitting, that every traveller on their
commute between the Pillars of the  North,
should be forced to stare
Eden
in the eyes and acknowledge
where
earth began.

Lent's painful labours yielded results,
When the now-bouyant child was found.
Still in the water, an infernal image of
Youths perfection lay drowned.

Prone to the tide,
His soft undulations suggested that by chance
His arrival had breathed new life
Into this hellish circumstance.

A fraught family on the shore,
reunited with their prodigal son.
Knowing that the time to lay him to rest
For eternity had come.

The final plans - the wake and funeral,
Will soon be underway.
To truly mark, in earth and heart,
The minors final day.

Any joy leeched from the event,
Was marred and stained with loss.
Knowing that to reconvene,
They'd paid a deathly cost

And identifying the body
Had yet to formally be done.
For some poor relative,
A haunting image of a loved one

That would reappear when you shut your eyes,
And ***** your mind with claws.
And weave into your memory
In place of what once was.

A closed coffin ensured
Only one person met that fate,
A morbid idol etched in their mind,
Surviving til this date.

The Catholic Shame surrounding
The unforgivable sin,
Fearing that God would not forgive
Or seek to welcome him in.

As for Heaven or for Hell,
I know not what will be.
But being laid to rest by familiar hands,
Is better than The Sea.

To see the hotel rise and bare its face between the repulsed pillars of peace was a sight long savoured on my first return to Derry.
And never before had oxidised copper appeared so appealing - now the patina beamed like a
tarnished hat upon a goliath, urging me closer to the heart of the city.
Imposing, imperfect but effortlessly pretty.

Seeing Derry for the first time in weeks, it felt different.
Not like a new place, but rather a very old one with all prosperity frozen.
A place you visit because of how old it is - what has happened there, not what is happening.
There will always be a certain amount of charm to the city; whether it's derived from the aged
walls that watch your every move like wise, sentient snakes swallowing the old centre. Or
perhaps the people will charm you, as a wounded animal may.
As regardless of circumstance they always find a way.

An unfortunate breed, many of the Derry ones. A breath-taking city undoubtedly, but I
couldn't help feeling bad for those that couldn't get out. It's like quicksand - unique,
intriguing, beautiful in a sense, but if you linger too long it'll pull you in.
The second largest city in the North, yet we lay detached and divorced from the commerce of
Belfast - no motorway to link us with the Queen's city, for reasons known all too well.
More like purgatory though I've painted it like hell.

I always felt people here knew strongly what they stood against - but never for.
Knew what had happened to the city - but not what will.
An untapped pipeline of problems lays trembling beneath us all.
Issues that we can't or won't address.
I've known people two, three, four years my junior that felt the Foyle offered their only
escape. It's been that way for centuries - the Foyle let us out - in famine or fight the New
World awaiting through its mouth. A fast flowing river capable of washing it all away.
But now it was being used for a very different kind of release.
Not to find new shores, but perpetual peace.

In spite of this, it is my home and always will be.
And I love it for it has formed me.
Though I may sound wary or condemning, it is only because I hold it so dear.
The original beacon of the North, until usurped by Belfast after two hundred years.
A city of culture, known long before they told us.
But I must be careful not to rest here for much, one can become hardened
By pondering too long the citys song, a morbid tale and ardent.

The Hall's bell moans and wails, like a Siren baiting me with its soft appearance.
The light refracting through the stain glass throws obscene blends of colour over the city,
glimmering, undualting, and I am mesmerised.
A facade and cadence used to deceive, urging me closer to the heart of the city.
Imposing, imperfect yet even more pretty.