Somerville Poet Dennis Daly writes: “The following ekphrastic poem, Odd Man, I based on a highly affecting 1947 British noir film set in Northern Ireland entitled Odd Man Out, directed by Carol Reed and starring James Mason. The movie had in turn been inspired by F.L. Green’s novel of the same name. – DD”

Odd Man

Amok they’ll run. Over tea they’ll plot

Forays of liberation. So fife

And drum bring cheers, the heart’s tommyrot

That taunts tyrant rule, the sharpened knife

Of order. Those boys will have their day,

Long dreamed, the reverence and the homage.

They’ll come to know infernal foreplay

Like buttered turnips and boiled carnage.

Beware of multicolored daub-men

Who paint blood, who dime their brothers out

To tribal chiefs. Raiders comprehend

Old routes. They strike, flee, walkabout.

After the brawl one stumbles forward,

Burdened with foul sins of risen ghosts.

He turns face to sleet, his men bestirred

In misuse. He clings to life’s lampposts.

— Dennis Daly

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