Lubeck , March 28, 1942 – Palm Sunday.

Lubeck , March 28, 1942 – Palm Sunday.

Hours before the bells of London rang for the blessing

of the palms, the bombers arrived over Lubeck,

a tinder town tied up in the twines of the river Trave,

and blew it to bits from the cathedral to St Marys.

God wasn’t a Nazi and Lubeck wasn’t on the front line;

it was war; anything goes, morality first.

And that’s what the broken bells of St Mary’s are saying still,

though they lost their tongues, their message is plain. 

Dream Song

This, my effort at a dream song,  was first published in  Berryman’s Fate: A Centenary Celebration in Verse (Arlen Press, 2014) edited by Philip Coleman. 
My referring to it as a dream song is more than a bit cheeky, Berryman's dream songs are in a class of their own. I was following his template for the publication, and I found the format  hugely liberating. At the time, I remember thinking I should use this style more regularly, and maybe I should; but would they always be third rate Berryman lookalikes?



Honora loves Hughie;
when Hubby’s out, Hughie’s in;
when Hughie’s in, Hubby’s out.
With pencil and jotter he arrives,
collaboraciously inclined towards writing poetry;
Honora fucks him poetic.


And he humping with winsome wordplay,
peppering words indiscriminate,
till catching the ribbon,
pencilling at speed,
jostling his poultry,
he fillets his jotter with creation,


his wordels  ̶  love children.
Humpy happy
Hughie lozenges back on the pillow,
his foot writing,
receding tides have always been creative
on the sands

Searching

She is old.

She is old and lives in a house that is much older.

Her face is in the front room window;

Her face full moon in the darkness of her room.

The sun has made stripes of her street,

The sun has rent this moldering old town in two.

She is searching in the bright sunlight opposite;

She is searching for the feel summers long ago.

AvantAppal(achia) submission call for special issue

AvantAppal(achia)'s second Special Is(sue) entitled (Yes)ABLED will be dedicated to the work of disabled poets, artists, and short story writers.

Subject-matter doesn’t have to be related to the experience of being disabled, it’s completely open. Check out www.avantappalachia.com for the submission guide-lines, but please note that "(Yes)ABLED" must be included in the email subject-line as the submission period for the regular Is(sue) 9 will be open at the same time.

The deadline for (Yes)ABLED is March 31, 2020 and it will go live on April 15, 2020. Times a movin, check out the website. Do it now.

SurVision Magazine #6 and call for submissions

Issue Six of surrealist poetry magazine Survision is now live and 100 per cent free online. It's a fantastic publication with works from 37 poets from Ireland, England, USA, Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Israel, Brazil and Ukraine, some in translation. 

Also, they're reading chapbooks and full collections by Ireland-born or -based poets between 1st January and 31st January 2020 with a view to a possible publication. ONE manuscript per poet via e-mail only, their e-mail address is stated on the front page of their website. 

There's no fee for manuscript submission but be aware that only good matches for SurVision Books will be considered. SurVision publishes top-drawer surrealist poetry; check out their magazines or the titles they've published before submitting. 

The link to  #6 is at http://survisionmagazine.com/currentissue.htm

At last, my first Irish poem

It has taken a long time, my Irish is getting there but slowly; I've a long way to go. A friend of mine suggested that we both take the plunge, mind you his command of the language is far greater than mine.

Anyway, I’ve wanted to write in Irish for a long time; the language suggests poems that English doesn’t. It brings me closer to the land, its atmosphere and its grain. Even though I lack the linguistic fluency, it still prompts me with words that convey more deeply the textures of the landscape and the spirit of the people who have lived here speaking with these words before me.

In the past, and perhaps still in some quarters, one of the slights thrown at the Irish language questioned the point of  a language that had forty different words for the same seaweed but was adrift (excuse the pun) in modern lingo. There are few who would quibble with Cezanne's multiple takes on Mont Sainte-Victoire or Monet's garden scenes.The same applies in language, different words bring different nuances; they open different circuits in the brain. A wider vocabulary gives rise to a wider richer range of expression. This applies to the use of different  languages also.

So, some might say I’ve got a nerve, but one of the blessings of blogging is having a reason to write and a place to post the efforts. I would, however, be very grateful to any reader who has enough Irish to correct my grammar, as I’m fairly sure there’s changes to be made.

I've included a rough translation below.

Oileán     

Sé an suaimhneas timpeall na dtithe a théann i bhfeidhm ort;

tá tú in ann gnáthsaol an phobail a shamhlú go héasca 

mar tá iarsmaí a shaolta scaipthe i ngach dtreo

ach iad go léir ag dul ar ais go mall go dtí an cré.

Thall, torann fharraige mar a bhí go deo, bualadh saoil na ndaoine.

An cé, a bhí lán beo le gníomhaíocht na hiascairí

ag deisiú a líonta, ag ullamhú potaí gliomaíde,

gan bhád amhain feistiú ann inniu.

Agus rianta chruathain na ndaoine le féiceáil

sna garraíthe mór thimpeall, fíorglas le iarrachtaí na glúnta uilig;

na hiomairí a bhain siad, ann fós ach ina fhásach,

mar scríobhneoireacht ársa gur mhair cine laochaois anseo fadó.

Island

It's the calmness around the houses that strikes you/ you can easily imagine the lifestyle of the people/ because the remnants of their lives are scattered all around/but they're all going back slowly into the earth.

Beyond, the noise of the sea as it has always been, the beat of community life/the quay that was full of the activities of fishermen mending their nets, preparing their lobster pots/without a boat moored there today.

And the hardship of the people to be seen/in the fields all around, rich green with the efforts of all the generations/ the ridges they dug still there but overgrown/ like ancient writing that a heroic race lived here long ago.

Time, unchecked, steals lives.

Taken

Once, in a sodden, flaggered field
beside the river,
the current took me;
not a canoe but a trout,
a water’s flint smoothed by its flow,
a ripple’s almond.

All sleekness and fluidity,
all instinct;
a lidless eye running,
seeing and discarding,
gorged on movement,
passing all argument.