Armani stops at our house

The ethics around photography are more than a bit grainy. The professional photographer is one thing, often questionable, but at least, he/she would appear to have a reason to be there, but the amateur is a different ball-game.

This flashy customer caught my eye; privileged materially, and with very expensive camera, he gave himself license to pry.

Armani stops at our house

  

Ferrari

sunbathing on the verge,

Armani

surveyed from the wall.

Rolex

grinning up a cuff,

Nikon

stole granddad’s gappy smile.

Ray-bans

snapping the moment shut,

Gucci

stepped from the grass;

Pirelli 

spat dust into our gateway.

The Wind Claps The Slates

The wind claps the slates;

all night they are hooves running berserk,

all night the wind is inciting them;

all night.

At twenty past two and twenty past three

and twenty past four I am looking at you;

how I would love to have hooves to come

crashing through your sleep, to burst into

your solitude.

And there I would, for better or worse,

demolish the muzzled years with as much

violence as reverberates beneath iron shoes,

as  causes such a frenzy in stone that slates

stampede.

Granny

Granny in woollen cardigans, bespectacled,

smooth-cheeked, sitting at the stove end

of the kitchen table, stockings rolled down,

wanting the dog to lick the ulcers on her legs.

Cups of tea coming and going like seasons,

showers of sunlight canonizing her fitfully,

switching on the light of her soft white hair,

the wild rose that bloomed free in her face.

The comfortable plumpness of her body

always shaped to her generous curiosity;

her old voice gentle as seaweed on a wave,

chatting life back into the bones of the dead.

The Viewing.

Dead: the colour of old cream,

his eyes shuttered shut;

so neat, besuited and slim,

the weight he lost dying.

They made a basket of his fingers

with a rosary spilling down;

everyone said he looked lovely,

but when I touched his face

it wasn’t him at all.

She Leaves

She leaves

a country of mountain tops,

pencil points in nothing

and crosses on current arrows

to where the sun shines on a space.

Angels

look over the rails,

cheering ferries on the sea

of her worries  ̶  

or that is where she bobs  ̶

among all the sparklets

on the seatop.

And fears

scratch their fingernails

down the glass

she has left;

not left,

left,

not left.

Growing Up

  

  

    

  Shortly you will trace lines,

  leave,

  join the herds,

  leave a trail among the trails

  meandering over the hills.

 

  We are part of some eccentric’s

  geometry;

  I wish I could tell you more,

  my little love.

Films in your face

I am watching the film in your face:

your enjoyment crinkling

at the corners of your eyes,

teeth catching your lower lip,

blood draining from the pressure,

draining back as soon.

Furrows on your forehead,

I am smiling at your absorption,

want to stub them out with my thumb

but you catch me looking

so I turn back to the screen

till your face is mine again.

The words on my lips

remain unsaid. A time may come

when, not having words,

I will wish I had spoken; a time

when love being tested, I could say,

I used to watch films in your face.

3 photographs

This little scene in the grounds of a holy well caught my attention.You can almost hear her exclamation, "Holy God!" And, what's gas is, the rest of the family got good steady jobs in the Civil Service.

This signpost above a beach gives you a fifty fifty chance of  taking the right direction to somewhere.

And, this sign at a petrol station isn't unique; I mean I know what it's saying, but I don't think its saying what it means.

Cailleach and the Púca

The Cailleach* stole apples from her rival Bríde and stored them till they were rosy-cheeked merry. They were in this condition when the Cailleach’s goat found them; and soon after he, in similar condition, jumped clean over the fence, and went careering through the countryside.

When she went in search of her goat, the first man the Cailleach met along the road remarked that a rabbit had stopped him and winked. A second met a hound who asked the way to Shrule, while a third, dishevelled and breathless, said a horse offered him a lift home, and carried him two miles out of his way.

For a year she trawled the countryside, hearing stories of a rampaging shape-shifter, till at last, the night after Samhain, she came in sight of her own field where an old man, sitting on a rock, eating an apple, greeted her.

They chatted happily for an hour or two on matters as diverse as the husbandry of goats and the tastiness of apples. There was a white patch on his meg that drew her attention over and over; there was something about it. And suddenly she knew. Like lightening she sprang on him, but he was swift and rolled from beneath her; in an instant, a hound was bounding into the distance with the most almighty great leaps.

The chase engaged, Cailleach flinging stones that lodged on hilltops, the hound sometimes treading on them as they rolled under his paws. They circumvented the whole of Ireland in a matter of days, leaving the landscape re-shaped behind them. It never ends. Each November storms circle the land from Dingle to Derry, Dundalk to Ring in a never ending cycle, Samhain to Lá Bríde; the hound howling, the Cailleach hot on his tail, stealing light from the sky with her never-ending hail of stones.

You can verify this account if you wish. The stones at Killeen Cormac are among the stones she has thrown; the hound’s footprints are in a boulder on Brewel Hill. The apples the goat scattered are the orbs of energy often appearing, still scattered, in photographs. The Púca’s antics are known all over Ireland and many are still recorded by unfortunates walking quiet roads late at night. Puck Fair is the yearly commemoration of the shape-shifter Púca*. And those great circles over Ireland, seen nightly on weather forecasts from September to February, are the chase as seen from the moon.



* The Cailleach is a Celtic deity, goddess of winter, also associated with earth formations, changing of the seasons, animals. She feature in many legends, in particular stories of her rivalry with Bríde, goddess of spring.

Púca (Phouka, Pooka) is a malevolent/mischievous/benevolent shapeshifter from Celtic folklore; a bringer of good, more often bad luck.

Spirals, Turnings at Newgrange

The sun enters the passage;

I meet him on my way;

he touches my head

like water.

I emerge into day;

in the chamber

the sun dwells a moment

on my earlier impressions.

I return after the day

to elaborate my carving,

my spirals,

my perpetual turning.

Trap

I was in a hawthorn,

trapped in its branches;

all arms, hands and fingers

prevailing on me not to struggle.

I was an exhibit in a jar,

ragged and shock-eyed,

praying for a passer-by

where ravens perch still for hours.

I was a storm-torn tatter

caught in another’s stitching;

my cries drifting into the air

nonchalant like dandelion seeds.

Running Away

I can't say for sure that I ever planned to run away as such, but, as a boy, I often thought about taking up permanent abode in my tree fort. It sounds very quaint now, closer to Tom Sawyer than to any child living today, but with a stash of crab apples, sorrel leaves and an occasional foray back to our kitchen to pinch some of my mother's rhubarb tart, I could do very nicely.

Tree fort was something of a misnomer; there was no fortification, but there was plenty of cover, and with a arsenal of stones and a catapult, I could defend my position indefinitely. And, as for composing a poem.......well that's just poetic license. 

Running Away

He ran in his Sunday clothes across Casey’s field, past Bully’s Acre, out over the line to the tree above the stream. Climbed it and sat all afternoon among the leaves’ shivery dampness, on frozen branches, under clouds bulging rain.

With crab-apples falling, dumbed time, to the grass below, he promised he’d stay there forever. Let them come, swarm beneath the tree, he’d not breathe; no matter how they called, he would not answer. He composed a poem:

There is a place for me

up among the branches

of an crab-appled lord,

ivy-draped; golden treasures

mix with stars of leaves.

There inside the elbow

with autumn breezes

close by shoulder,

quiet as an owl,

I long to be.

But two hours later, when the houses’ yellow windows were calling tea-time across the fields, sorrel leaves and crab apples were promising a particularly sour tomorrow; since he was very hungry, he went home. 

Passage

        

We were lovers;

now I'm off

and you're packed away;

you folded up small.

So with curving spine

and arms belting knees

tight under chin, I roll on;

a wheel from an accident.

Ahead there is space,

to wander in,

to kick up dust;

space where fires won't burn.

The baby in the tree

The baby in the tree

is screaming.

High above the pathway

near the black tips

of the sycamore branches

he is gaping,

white membraned luminous.

How did he get there?

He blew there in the wind;

it took him

like a flag from his cot

till he was stretched

across the boughs

like the wings of a bat.

And who sees him?

I do;

all his hopeless writhing,

too high for the passerby.

And his screams:

too high,

too high for the passerby.

Breathing

We take it for granted. And then comes dying, we stand around the bed watching the work that is breathing. And you think my father is dying and he must work; work harder than he has all his life. How merciless is death that makes you toil to pass through its gate.

Breathing

Now my father's life

is breathing.

Heavy work.

He has already slipped away

to be alone

while we outside

mark every breath

like lap timers.

Now come the spaces:

a breath

is an isolated thing.

Finally one breath

arrives alone.

I feel a soul has left,

but just then

I see, so clearly,

it was hope

that slipped out of the room.

Hughie

Hughie thinks of sex without faces;

he often thinks this way

because there never was a welcoming face,

so he never had sex,

and this July he'll be 46.

Hughie lives alone and is settled in his ways;

people think him peculiar,

never ask him to join them in the pub

or wherever.

He is growing more peculiar, they say.

Hughie has an office job;

colleagues bid him good morning at coffee-break

but sit at a different table.

He eats his lunch in the Arms bar,

and always sits facing  the wall.

SUMMER ORCHARD EVENING.

On an evening

when apple was eating the worm,

tree grating the sun

with some clouds, dusty birds;

the green cloth

was spread to the orchard wall.

I watched bees collecting post

while cat was a tea cosy

with dozey trip-wire eyes.

Suddenly dog alarm in the hedge

comes bursting from the undergrowth:

big game hunter

and cat gone steeplejack.

Then dog winks

and we stretch out,

and I go back to being a microscope

eyeball deep in daisies.

Sure Sight

I see
pearl-like
dawn
in
your face

a desolate
blue
yonder
in
your irises

the wash
of slivered
moonlight
in
your smile

I know of
nowhere
less trodden
more
perfect

I contract
to be
forever
an explorer
in that universe.

Scarecrows.

We are two scarecrows: rags and string;

what the rain softens the wind picks clean.

We are two scarecrows: sticks and straw;

crows fly out from underneath our jackets.

We are two scarecrows: nails and wire;

each day drowning as the corn grows higher.

We are two scarecrows: sacks and hay;

nodding toward eternity, we tip toward clay.

Child

         

Where are you.

Where are you child.

Among the spring green leaves

Naked as a lizard;

I hear your airy lilt,

Why are you humming.

From what remote well

Do these grotesque sounds come;

Dispatched, bleak cirrus

In the high skies of a child's voice,

Freezing all the forest

Into fairy-tale stillness.

Where are you,

Where are you child.

In what empty paradise;

Where's the tower that emits your eccentric song;

Against the frozen wings of which birds of paradise

Do you rub.

One of the Most Beautiful Places in Ireland

This poem, The Green Road, refers to one of the most beautiful and very walkable walks in Ireland; the green road skirts around the north-western corner of the Burren in county Clare. A karst limestone landscape with unique fauna, herds of wild goats, and the most stunning views of Galway Bay, the mountains of Connemara and the Aran Islands. A lot of people will drive on to the Cliffs of Moher, but if you've got 2 working legs beneath you and a couple of free hours this is an unbeatable pleasure.

The poem was included in the anthology, Fermata: Writings inspired by Music (Artisan House, 2016) which was edited by Eva Bourke and Vincent Woods. It's a magnificent collection, featuring writers such as Thomas Kinsella,Vona Groarke, James Joyce, Seamus Heaney, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paul Durcan, Derek Mahon, Pearse Hutchinson, Paula Meehan among a host of others and a foreword by composer/musician Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin. These writings sing to the music that inspired them; be good to yourself and buy it.

The Green Road.© Copyright David Purchase and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The Green Road

The blackthorns above Fenore
are flight rooted;
they are folklore’s skeletons,
beggars of the green road.

Scoured to the knuckle,
stunted on burren karst,
they are the hags on the mountain
hunched from Atlantic gales.

Yet even this stone-weary day,
with hunger perched on their throats,
a robin is singing in each
notes that singe the February air.

Beneath the huddling sky,
into the ear of the green road
it pours, clear as water,
the music of tin whistlers’ dreams.