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Can be found in 'Readings from the Book of Exile' (Canterbury Press, 2013)

lyrics

I once was blind but now I can see
I once was him, but now I’m me
I once was cold, but now I’m not
I used to fear hell, where the fire is hot
I wanted to be straight, but the thing is I’m queer
I-thought-I belonged there, but I belong here

I once was wrong, because I thought I was right
I thought that the darkess was the same as the night
and thought that the light was consoling and beautiful
all it asked was ‘be pure, and be right and be dutiful’
but light can be insipid and daytime can be vacuous
and no cult is so crude as the cult of the miraculous
I thought that walking on the water would be the end of it all
and addiction to articulation was the start of my fall

I fell into meaninglessness, I fell into sin
I fell into darkness, and I felt caged in
and I fell into the arms of something that was lurking
in the corner, in the shadows, and it’s been slowly converting
my methods and madness, into myth and new meaning
my sagas and sadness given girth and given grieving.

and now I believe in the god of the human
the good and the glorious, the generous and moving.

I once was blind, now I’m blinder still
and inside my own nighttime, I am silent and still.

credits

from hymns to swear by, released March 17, 2010

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Pádraig Ó Tuama Belfast

poetry, songs, theopoetics, bits of heresy and lots of story.

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