First day in the seminary
Just eleven years old
Four boys we went exploring
A corridor dark and cold
A priest was at the other end
Welcome home he cried
I knew he was being friendly
But I knew in my heart he lied
That day I lost my family
Lost my home my friends
Lost my own locality
Normal life now ends
Confined in cloistered buildings
Walled in from outside world
Latin and Greek ahead of me
Not a sight of girls
‘Two paths diverged in a yellow wood’
My life changed that day
No longer the home in Lancashire
No more the family way
Orphaned now within the Church
I retreated all within
Took me years to find myself
It really was a sin
Everyone has something
Things gang aft agley
As Robert told his mousie friend
In Mossgiel that day
And Spike he lost composure
When blown up by a bomb
Thereafter he blew up tension
With humour so aplomb
And Saul that religious warrior
Fell to ground this day
And all his proud ambitions
They too went ‘agley’
But then the film fell from his eyes
He saw the Lord so clear
And life thereafter was his joy
To live with faith not fear
Brian Fahy
25 January 2022
+ Robert Burns epitomises the life of struggle with his efforts to work a farm and to become a poet. Spike Milligan suffered shell shock from the war and thereafter could not cope with any kind of stress or tension. He either fell into depression or he punctured stress with his zany humour. Saint Paul was a dark and dangerous man to know while zeal had hold of him. The Damascus Road proved his salvation. Looking back on my own life, I was an institutionalised prisoner of religion until I broke free.
Erris Poetry 