St Féichín's Warning

As hare – whiskers taut, eyes bulging –

he scours the mainland

in the grey hour of evening

when demons go searching for currency.

Sitting sentinel on day’s shore-line,

grabbing at the seen and the half-seen,

reining in phantasms,

deciphering the commotions of molecules,

he senses, suddenly, a juddering in the air

from around some looming presence 

– an approaching darkness, darker than night – 

and an ice-bolt hits him.

With the flesh creeping along his flanks,

he kicks back his hind legs

and bounds through the tussocks,

to the church in the hollow.

The bell’s baleful clonk, strange at this hour,

draws shadowy figures out of the night

into a bedraggled huddle

standing anxiously in the sanctuary of the church.

.

Féichín, with one last tug on the rope,

and hare’s wild gaze in his eyes,

turns to them gravely

to announce the arrival of Satan on Omey.

And on that ominous note, happy new year. 

Wonder at a City Pond

Mallards, water hens, swans; all round-bellied on the pond

or rotated 180, peaky-arsed upwards, delving for food.

Down there the arrow-headed, sleek-sided, taper-tailed

dart between beaks, hooks and gobble-jaws.

The magnificent refinement of bodies here at a city pond;

we strike the pavement to move along

as a flock of gulls, maybe fifty or sixty, swoop low over the water,

cutting the air; blades, slivers, silver clavicles.

I can't help feeling after the breakdown of the recent climate conference in Madrid, that it's time for us to insist through the ballot box that breakdowns are no longer acceptable, that representatives should be locked in until resolutions are found. It's gone too late, and too catastrophic to be accepting less.
And, as for those who don't accept climate change as a reality, we should insist on their participation; whether accepted or not, the implications are too great for anyone to be taking risks with our children's futures.
With the greatest hopes for enlightenment among our leaders, let's hope for a great 2020, as in vision and the new year. M

On a clear moonlit night I fell asleep in a field

and dreamt I was sleeping there.

All night a terror of being vulnerable

stood just beyond the pool of my dreaming,

 immediately outside my defences,

even my waking.

No People

The hunch-doubled thorns,

ingrown pantries

dung-puddled;

the moss-stone walls

tumble-gapped.

The nettle-cracked doorway,

lintel-fallen

byre-footed;

the cloud curtained windows

elder-berried.

The stone-sheltered air

bumbled still,

ruin-reverent;

the submerged garden ridges

dumb-founded.

A Canal Vision

In the dim light of a December evening

swans, bright as struck matches,

are gliding over the oarweed of traffic lights

on their way to Harold’s Cross Bridge.

Ghosts on winter’s dark glass,

blind to the world’s commotion,

they pass without trace,

blind even to their own beauty.

Market, Emily Square, 60's

                            Gulls
pecking in the litter of clothes,
scarved heads bobbing
on the spume


for there were more coins than notes.

      

    Shoes,

their uppers and stitch-work

bent this way and that,

fingers inserted to the toe

for they had more copper than silver.

                                       Spoils,

back and back and back,

that incessant wrangling

over threadbare rewards

for their’s was then far less than plenty.

Crucifixion Scene

I’m struck by the basketry of bones containing the thorax;

that unexpected view of internal anatomy,

a map of pain.

I think of Frida Kahlo, the broken ionic column that supported her,

the deer struck with so many arrows,

all contained within her defiance.

And then I see that the bones are not containment,

they are radiant;

they radiate strength.

Passing

Desert,

clouds of shifting

sands,

landscapes

forever passing by.

Moon,

blank-faced

forlorn,

always assumed

you were going somewhere.

Love Song

Here I am, grey haired and lonely,

singing out to sea in a voice that cannot compete

with the thunder of the tide;

yet still I persist, for nature has shaped me to it.

And if, by some unlikely chance, my song drew a mate,

she would almost certainly take umbrage,

be indignant at first sight;

but, as I’ve already pointed out, this is my only way of being.

So here I am, cursed to an activity

that degrading me, promises only further degradation;

churning out a song

that the waves themselves contrive to suppress.

Sleepless

Spent the night driving

my wheel-less car, light-less

to dawn’s road-less gravel.

Day, eventually projecting

itself in the round,

revealed the signposts,

all written in an unknown script.

Impressionist Poem

Ingots of light melt,

raft my bottle green worries

like water weed,

fill my eyes

with dizzying effervescence.

Break the seal of water,

unravel its fantasies;

the world is exhilaration;

see it

as water does.

Beyond Lace

She has just the dress, it’s short and floats

around her thighs but is tight at the waist.

She sees mens’ eyes on her when she wears it,
never acknowledges, but knows she has captivated  

them for a minute, maybe more: an electric shock

from brain to crotch after she has passed. 

She’ll put on the clear stockings with lace borders 

holding them snug around her upper thighs, that hand-like 

grip on her skin. She will leave her cunt unclothed 

under her dress, like breathing, a gag removed, sexy, 

herself, the way she knows she can be, is.

She will sit with her thighs crossed, the lace 

showing just beneath the hem of her dress,

her bare sex six inches above. How they would

strain to see beyond that lace, how their minds

would race with the faintest glimpse of her bare

flesh exposed for a moment with the re-crossing 

of her legs, the smallest shift of her body.

A drop lingers before falling from a leaf. Collecting

water from the blade, it quivers but holds, holds and 

holds till one molecule arrives that is too much to hold.

She knows about anticipation, how the infinitesimally 

small movement can turn a man’s mind, she has 

watched the drops and she has watched the men.

She will sit and talk and hold her drink between thumb

and forefinger as though it was a trinket.

She will allow her dress to rise to the place where

the sliver of her skin will tighten the mens’ penises; 

she will be chatty and smiling, occasionally shifting her 

thighs, looking into the men’s faces with charming 

nonchalance. Her eroticism brushing lightly against all

the exchanges of the evening, she will be utterly seduced
by her own sexiness.

The Discovery

Many years after he had died,

I found the smell of my father’s office in his briefcase.

Pipe-smoke, cigarettes, pencil-parings, paper;

not just his office but part of himself
still in existence after all this time.

When I was small I would ask to sit there, beside him,

in the heat, the smoke, that mixture of smells. 

He would say if you’re quiet; I would promise

until, minutes later, I talked too much or stirred too much

and, well, I was ejected.

I opened the case to an assemblage of atoms 

unique to my childhood,to the sixties even, 
put there by my father and now dissipating 
like an art treasure in the sunlight,

the last of my father turning to nothing.

The Great I

  Eye-pebbled

      tooth-pebbled

               carrot-nosed;

             snowman

                           melting.

Next week these will be on the lawn. Package them and send to the greatest president ever. Write him that his position is great, but he is snow; same as snow everywhere.

My Advice This November Day

Don’t be too fond of owning,  my little love,
As you fly;
Your mother’s concertina has had many owners
And there’ll be many more.

Let your head be full of the magic of flying
And happiness will be yours;
Be light as a leaf  among the millions,
Such exhilaration.

This flight is your life, darling,
Unique, incredible, finite.

A Hat on a Man.

A man donned a hat that shaded his eyes;

in consequence he was never the same man again.

Through whatever shadows he walked, light or dark,

he was hidden within his own shade, and knew it.

From then on people remarked on the man that nobody knew;

and he was forced to comply.

St Feichín Takes His Followers To Omey

Continuing adventures of St Feichín of Omey:

St Feichín Takes His Followers To Omey

Feichín in the wooded Glen of Fore

declared that men must shun trees,

‘for’, said he, ‘sinners thrive where rain

does not flay the hides of men.’

 ‘Let us go to Omey where trees have shrivelled to stone,

where thorns are the sea driven ahead of wild winds

and skies of  gorse will lash our backs.

Let us go far from trees who throw their shade on our repentance.’

So they built their monastery on the island

where the winds rode in on the dragons of the ocean,

where the rains fell incessantly, nails, even out of  a clear winter’s night

and their ears rang with the booming of souls drowning in eternity.

Whale Song

When I was young

night cleared away the countryside;

there was nothing till morning.

Sometimes a dog barked;

barked into the void;

that bark carried forever.

When I hear whale song,

I hear the void;

I hear childhood terror.

Up-rooted

Torn from their place,

bunches of blood-vessels;

roses up-rooted

soon blown.

Up-rooted for their ground;

left lying

fade quicky; up-rooted

blown roses.

Blood-flow

knows its ground, left rooted;

dries quickly

torn from that place.

Encroaching onto the landscape

In leisure

                     Forgetful of the Gods

                              Blood

      Hardship

                   Famine

How those soul-sodden fields must detest us

Vision

The beach was a flood of  sunlight.

We, alone on that long stretch of strand, a dozed
to the clock of the tide marking afternoon time,

sibilance rolling into sonorousness with each wave’s passing.

I remember you walked along the water’s edge,

your white cotton dress a fishing net for the sun

and you were dazzling.

When today I hear a tide’s clamour resounding around a bay,

hear each wave’s commotion echoing into the distance,

and consider the millions of stones turning over,

the endlessness of that beauty strikes hard

against that momentary vision of you,
dressed in light,

playing on the edge of eternity
as the tide drummed an afternoon’s hours away.

Fuchsia,

the blossoms,

elegant little ballerinas,

red as rowan,

bright as Christmas.

August, the bushes

luxuriant along the roadside,

filled with the baritone

drone of a thousand bees.

One blossom, torn

through the sepals,

erupts on the tongue

with the sweetness of honey.

Green into Grey

When the clouds

Fell onto the hill with the trees,

And they were sinking,

Sinking;

I thought of you.

Those still heads

Belied their stirrings in the murk;

They were swimming,

Swimming;

I was thinking of you.

All day long

Shadows mutely threading that depth,

And they were ghostly,

Ghostly;

I was remembering.

Then, when the sun

At last tore the mist from the trees

They were gleaming,

Gleaming;

And I dreamt of you.

The After-Mass Men

Remember those figures by the church wall 

Sculpted in after-mass conversations:

Blather-tattooed men

That hung there by their jackets;

Museums with pockets,

Pockets full of knives, pipes and matches.

Stone men:

Pre-Christians defiling Sabbaths

With their Saturday conversations.

Gargoyles:

Coats would be wrapped against them

As though they were sudden showers of hail.

Only Once Since.

in memory of my mother

When, on an April afternoon,

the countryside was bathed

in pristine  sunlight

And the fields were roaring their green

And the sky above was shifting along

with the most breath-taking speed,

I saw you on the river

And you were happiness

Complete and utter.

I recognized you

Because you would have known that was the way

To send the message.

And, there and then, both of us knew

You would never 

 send another.

The Poems Are Past.

The poems are past;

goodnight, au revoir.

And life, handed over like a cheque;

good luck, all the best.

Still: an adjective for a man ?

Still ?

Think of rain, bucketing down,

sunshine caught in its strings;

that's how I think of you:

a rainstorm in June; gentle subversive .

The Angel and St Feichín

Readers of my blog will be getting familiar with St Feichín by now; I, myself, have taken a great fondness to this 7^th century Irish saint. 

He’s got all the powers of a super-hero without the noise of contemporary technology around him; he’s the perfect, early Christian, Jedi master. But better than that, he had all the wonderful traits: abstinent, pleasant, charitable, powerful, emaciated, just-worded, honest, pious, rich in sense, godly, affectionate, discreet, opportune, wise, prayerful………………………………………………..( from a medieval document via a seventeenth century rewriting); yet he was wonderfully contrary, when called back to confront St Ciaran, he walked backwards so as not to look him in the face. And, guess what, he died from a plague, he himself called down.

So here's my version of his call to convert the pagans of Omey.

The Angel and St Feichín

One night a very large bird settled on the roof of the cell in which St Feichín was sleeping; this event occurred at Easdara in the present day County Sligo.

Still there at dawn, the brilliance of the early sun reflecting off its magnificent plumage caused a crowd to gather. And as the morning progressed the crowd swelled further, to such a size, in fact, that their tumult distracted the saint who was at the time in a transport brought on by the deepest meditation. And so, it was not with little annoyance that he emerged from his hut to inquire as to why such a large crowd had gathered in that spot.

When the extraordinary bird saw Feichín, it started up a jabbering that amazed all those who were there. Feichín, for his part, recognizing the bird as a gannet, and knowing that they never travelled so far inland, moved closer to listen and soon found himself conversing in a language, the like of which he had no previous knowledge.

All marvelled at the bird: its gleaming white plumage, the extent of its wings whose span was greater than the width of the cell, the fierce grey eyes which never ventured from the saint’s face, its insistent natter.

The conversation continued for two hours; an engagement between man and bird that had the mouths of all present gaping like the black caves in the hills to the south. Never once were they deflected by the milling of the crowd around them nor stop to wet their throats nor, even once, did the flow of their communication wane.

And then, quite suddenly, around noon, to the amazement of all, the gannet rose with a great pumping of its wings, followed by Feichín who rose from the ground like a leaf gathered up in a gale. Into the sky, side by side, growing smaller and smaller, eventually two black dots like stars that went out, the gannet and Feichín disappeared into the clouds travelling in a southwest direction.

All those that gathered fell to their knees and, as one voice, emitted a howling that was partly extolment of the greatness of God and Feichín, partly lamentation at the taking of their saint.

But it was that same day that Feichín landed on the brightly flowered sward of Omey, and it is since that day that the people of Omey have their faces turned to the one God.

Flight Mechanism

I found a bird

dismantled;

a pair of wings,

still feathered,

on an axis of miniature bones.

Only yesterday,

this anatomical array

imparted the capability of flight.

Head, legs, belly

removed;

I found it,

like a daVinci investigation,

a perfect isolation of the relevant parts.

Life, trains you choose

Life, trains you choose:

hop on, hop off, forget to;

and still no matter how many

you take, you’re only ever in

one carriage,

only ever in the one you’re in.

We could string this out, couldn’t we:

long-distance, short-distance, circle lines;

the country singers have done it all already;

it does strike me though,

the more trains you take,

the less direction you have.

Berry Picking

On a windy day I could hear the conversations speeding through the phone wires:

Roscommon to Dublin, Roscommon to Galway, the Dublin express thrumming through.

I would stand below them,  listening, waiting for one word to fall, mercury-drop perfect,

down past the briars, dog roses, blackthorns, elders, into the can of the young boy’s ear.

Peninsula

A peninsula: shingle, cockle and barnacle shells, strips of desiccated wrack,

greened with sea-holly. The wooden cabin, though frequently lashed with spray,

was salted dry, and coloured somewhere between bone and limestone;

I lived there for five months before you came.

From the land our light seemed no more than a single candle burning;

the clothes on our line had the appearance of  rags,

and the smoke from our fire curled into the sky with a nonchalance

that suggested our daily struggles with lighting washed up timbers.

You’ll remember the shingle made walking difficult; with each step the stones rolled.

You said it sounded like the grinding of a mouth full of loose teeth; but, around the bay,

 a billion stones rolled thunderously with each beached wave;

and the  breeding terns came at us like boomerangs.

Nights: we were  unlit stars perhaps, but at one with the universe, free and alive

 in the unbroken expanse of shore, sea and sky; we had  space

 to be colossal, to exhilarate; and moonlight, our spotlight to roar songs into the cosmos,

to take the universe’s light into our eyes and exult in it.

Came the day of migration: wings outstretched, muscles fluid, necks craned to our separate
destinations; we, without backward glances, took to the air

with eyes big enough to countenance the curve of the earth, greedy enough to fly it;

and left our peninsula, a finger  pointing to somewhere .

Inheriting The Land.

  Emigration seems to be a never-ending feature of Irish life. This poem  is rooted in the Ireland of my childhood.  The boat then had the effect a little death for those left behind.

Inheriting The Land.

Here the sea is no more than a sigh in a shell,

conversations speed past, pole high, Dublin to Galway

and music is the wind whistling beneath a door.

Slightness describes Summer's step,

stonework its skies; a little light drips

from its edges but it's falling from a miser's hand.

Across the fields the church, within its necklace

of dead congregations, is a rusty hinge;

a place filled with a century's stillness.

And the ivy-choked trees lean closer together

like old men guessing at each others' words.

If you were to fly over these patchwork hills,

along the hedgerows and through the lightless haggarts,

you'd never meet a soul. The old farmers are sitting

in their twilight kitchens, their families standing

on the mantelpiece in the other room that's never used

with faces tanned beneath American skies.

Only the din of crows seeps into that silence;

crows more numerous than leaves on the sycamores,

always bickering, hogging the light,

building their cities, staking their inheritance.

Biblical Truth

Don’t look to a rich man to loosen anyone’s chains;

wealth has seldom been amassed with empathy for the impoverished.

Crumbs from the rich man’s table are still the staple;

it’s as it’s always been: easier for a camel to get though the eye of a needle

than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Plenty Jazz No Poetry

All the words  rushing,

propelling themselves, toppling over each other

like water through a sluice,

conveying no meaning

beyond their own chaotic flow.

Stand there with a bucket refusing to fill;

the words raining out,

ricochetting with that uncontainable energy

away from shape

like iron filings defying a magnet.

Where What

I am in a place I don’t recognize.

Alone.

There is a country that has left me.

I don’t have a compass.

And if I did I do not believe it would find

me.

There is no point in yelling

this far out to sea.

Besides, I appear to have lost my voice.

Heartlands Writers Event Cancelled

Unfortunately ‘The Heartlands Writers’ event due to take place this Saturday, 14^th Sept, has had to be cancelled.  I am hopeful that one or more literary events will take its place  in  the coming year. 

Reminder: Workshops and Readings in Roscommon

HEARTLANDS WRITERS

with JANE CLARKE, BRIAN LEYDEN and MICHAEL O’ DEA

A celebration of writers from the Hidden Heartlands with an afternoon of masterclass workshops followed by an evening’s miscellany of words and music in Roscommon Arts Centre.

2pm: Registration

2.15pm – 3pm: Readings and Workshop Introductions.

3.15pm – 5pm: Workshops

The Arts of Metaphor: Acclaimed poet Jane Clarke will look at the role of metaphor in creative writing. Participants are invited to come with a favourite poem or a few lines of prose where they find the metaphor/s exciting, intriguing or moving.

Write On: Author Brian Leyden will bring his expertise to guide and encourage participants to write with a fresh eye, a clearer sense of personal style, and a new confidence.

Sculpting a Poem from the Rough Block: Michael O’Dea, poet and teacher of creative writing, will facilitate writers in the fining of their work and follows the complete process of a writing a poem.

7pm – 8.30pm: Literary Miscellany.  Enjoy a series of readings from Jane, Brian and Michael interspersed with musical interludes.

SATURDAY 14th SEPTEMBER | €15 Workshops | €15 Literary Miscellany | €25 Workshops & Literary Miscellany

Me Today

My brain is on a pole approximately 80cm from my head;

there’s a dull ache in its place, and my thoughts are crossing the gap

                         at greatly reduced speeds.

My eyes are transmitting from a station on a nearby hill;

everything is drawn with broad black outline, so each object is more its shape

                                                                                   than itself.

My ears, however, are firmly in their place, and appear to have evolved

to the point that I am aware of collisions in the remotest regions of the universe;

            this, to me, is particularly unsettling.

Passing

Dusty light falling through the trees,

their apple-laden branches,

settling on the tall grass, thriving nettles,

is sealing the orchard in a kind of torpor.

.

The fat apples, awaiting the picking that will not come,

avow, as light the darkness around it,

our transience:

time and purpose.

We pray for the monks on High Island

High island pitching tossing, appearing disappearing,

in the dragon waves angered, now awake, risen from their silent deep.

I saw its sail, Féichín’s church rising falling through the flailing rain,

and him, a cross, arms extended; eyes, ovals of pain, elongated upwards;

mouth, grotesque black hollow gouged deep in weathered shale.

We prayed for them: six monks floundering in the ocean’s thrashing jaws;

that the weight of their sins would not drag them to their deaths;

that the light of God would shine and the saint would climb, extend his hands,

a rope, pull the others from the cleansing rage; that the light would split the sky,

send Lucifer’s demons  scurrying out beyond the margins of the sea.

Search

I am here, I remind myself slightly drunken.

I am; but I am not the same I am.

I look inside this evening to find the change;

I look inside the corners, the furniture,

And  am decided that the change is

The wish to search.

Reading AT The Edge

Reading AT The Edge  this Tuesday, 27th August, in the Johnston Library, Cavan will be poets: Jessamine O’Connor from Roscommon, Glen Wilson from Fermanagh, Jackie O’Gormon  from Athlone and Cavan's new writer in residence, Anthony J Quinn.  There will be an open mic after the readings.  It's the latest in a series which has been featuring excellent readers for a number of years now thanks to the support of Cavan Arts Office . The event is at 6.30pm.