A Party for the Broken
Tonight we will have a party
Only for the broken pieces.
Only the crooked and the blunt ones
Are welcome tonight;
The shattered and the stained can come,
But you perfected ones should stay away.
All the orphans and exiles
Will be arriving soon with their
Bundles of rags and sorrow.
Make room, you bright angels:
Now the wounded are coming home.
Tonight will be a celebration of our tragedies,
All our petty stupidities,
Our shameful transgressions
And the unedifying failure
To become what we might have been
In other, more radiant lives.
Here are the unrelinquished griefs
And the never-forgiven slights;
Here is the stuttering clumsiness
And all the stagnant laziness.
Here is the hollow in my heart.
Come in.
Welcome.
I’m so glad you’re here.
Outside, the Buddhas
And the Saints are laughing.
In here, there is a quieter
Communion of our tragedies.
Sit. There is food and cheap wine,
A warm fire and candles.
Eat. Drink. Then speak,
And we shall all weep
Sticky and graceless tears.
At this party, we are dancing
To ten thousand folksongs.
Each song cracks and falters
And is more darkly holy
For every defective note.
This is the party for the broken.
Imperfect music plays for imperfect dancers.
Imperfect speeches are imperfectly spoken.
We bang tables and forget our words;
We wash the floor with our tears.
You shattered and stained beauties,
All crooked and graceless as you are,
Blunted by the hard world of death,
Love and the push of time’s spear;
You who are more glorious than statues,
As rich in stories as pirates,
As worthy as comets or stars,
This is the secret I have
To share with you tonight:
Our dark-tongued singing
Reaches heavens even the Saints don’t know;
Our graceless, defiant dancing
Opens up the whole Universe.
Tonight, let the Buddhas be silent;
In here, we will raise our glasses
And sing so loud and badly
That all the bright and dark
Heavens will hear our song.
Tom Hirons is a writer and storyteller based on the edge of Dartmoor, in England. He is the editor and founder of Clarion magazine and 'Feral Angels Press' and co-founder of 'Hedgespoken' travelling storytelling theatre and 'Hedgespoken Press'. His poem-book Sometimes a Wild God is a bit of a sub-cultural classic and his most recent collection is The Queen of Heaven (Feral Angels Press, 2024.) He manages — against the odds — to make his living through writing and teaching poetry.
