Faraway it seems
and yet all around and close;
time like snow has fallen on your memory.
Those conversations sluicing
through an afternoon
in a snug in an old pub;
dna spirals of cigarette smoke,
window-light trapped in the coils
and your voice
with its oak-timber grain,
stained over time,
cured in porter and smoke.
Faraway it seems,
but still in amber light,
still lifting from the floor boards.
A woman standing in the blown rubble
and twisted steel of her house,
sees no sense in war.
Asks the collapsed walls what
strategic advantage has been gained
in blowing up her kitchen;
the kitchens up and down the street,
both sides
and all the parallel streets.
What military plans were the children
of the area drawing up
in copies concealed beneath their homework;
and what now
with winter coming
and thirst and hunger,
and no husband?
Standing in the blown rubble,
the street in her house;
sky in her house
her children waiting outside, tatters of war.
There is no ‘one view’;
all that happens is forged differently
in every mind
and, from the same viewpoint,
all differs with turning.
Wisdom understands this,
but, lost in the tall grass of prejudice,
wisdom is an unsought capacity.
a poetic take on Klimt's 'The Kiss'
If there is a moment that is complete,
it is this moment;
the world outside,
the lovers one in intimacy
within the glitter of their sensations,
their own private galaxy;
faces turned
to that inner sharing.
And the cloak of gold flowing around
not away,
the earth, universe in all splendour
diminished by the splendour of their love.
I'm looking forward to being back at Boyle Arts Festival this year. I'm giving a reading at 3pm in Frybrook House on Tuesday 22nd.
The festival itself is a 10 day event and has now been in existence since 1985, having developed from a smaller festival that began in 1983. It is one of the best known in the country. This year, as always, it includes music of all types, art exhibitions, drama, literary events, interviews, comedy, children's events. Headliners include music from Karma Police, The Fureys, The Irish Tenors, Bad Manners, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and others; comedian, Jarlath Regan; author, Kevin Barry; historian, Diarmaid Ferriter. It goes on, but I'll stop here.
The festival runs from July 17th to 26th.
Miners for Minerals
First it was that, miners for minerals;
disposable lives for valuable ores;
their clogging lungs for the silver service
at rich mens’ tables.
Now it’s defence for minerals;
populations on the scales with rare earths
and, as always, the ores tipping the scales
on rich mens’ tables.
