Traffic

 

I'm four years out of Dublin now and live in an idyllic part of Donegal. The change wasn't quite as dramatic as it might have been as I've been travelling up and down for years, spending weekends and holidays here. To say that the quality of my life has improved is an understatement and I have not regretted leaving, but I have lost something which I think this poem addresses.

I awoke to the usual rumble of city traffic

and quickly realised it was the sea two fields away;

for the first time felt the loss of a life passed; 

that boom of  activity was the myriad possibilities

daily breaking on my shore;

the roar of conflicting energies: the screeching, 

bellowing breaks, exhausts, pistons.

The cacophony of the streets, the pumping city.

I turned on my side to hear that traffic in the sea

                                              but it was not there.

Days of our Lives

So we’d have a coffee, maybe two, then off

into town by the side streets, looking for

red-brick houses with lilac doors and yellow

window frames. Drop into the IFI, sit over

another coffee, browsing the catalogue with half interest,

the steady drift of film-goers and idlers with more.

On down Dame Street to College Green,

enjoying our navigation of ever-shifting crowds,

the dexterous manoeuvrability of ourselves.

In Hodges Figgis we’d scan the poetry

shelves and the art books, those names and titles

settling in our heads like we were travelling the

world: Heaney, Mahon, Carver, Balthus,

Kahlo, Lorca, Basho, Holub ‒ dabs of fresh paint

and print to keep us informed for a month or two ‒

before returning to Grafton Street to knit crooked stitches

through the crowds, stop a few minutes to hear a busker

play a saw or slide guitar then around to Tower Records

to be tempted by some new ECM arrival in the jazz section.

George’s, Aungier, Wexford, Camden, Richmond Streets;

the diminishing scale of a city’s architecture, and

the backwards walk down the telescope to the landscape

of our normal lives. Crossing the border at the canal, with

its familiar vista down Rathmines Road to the mountains

beyond; we, like fish, breathing easier in our own habitat,

saw our hurdles flattened, but, perhaps, never recognized

the days of our lives?

That beautiful odyssey: Saturdays, mid-morning to mid-afternoon;

or maybe it was just one Saturday,

or, maybe, it wasn’t at all.

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.

Explaining Our Madness

A friend, contemplating the various madnesses of humanity during the week, mentioned the irony of governments paying people to save lives and kill simultaneously; only doctors save lives one by one, soldiers kill in thousands.

There is a short period in childhood when these ironies are questioned, I think this is the only time in which we can save our children from what we've perpetuated. From Sunfire...

 

   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.

Swan Fashion Show in aid of Our Lady's Hospice and Care Services

A cause worth supporting. The Swan Fashion Show in aid of Our Lady’s Hospice and Care Services will take place at 8.45pm on Tuesday 27th March in the Swan Centre, Rathmines.

The show, which is being organised by Rathmines College in association with the Swan Centre, promises to be a very enjoyable night out with audience having the option of arriving in 20’s style clothing,(spot prizes for the best), and for a paltry €20 (VIP)having a few glasses of wine too.

Tickets cost €10 and €20 and can be bought at The Candy Bar in the Swan Centre from Fri 16th March. Doors for VIPs 8.20pm.

Email: rathminesccpm@gmail.com

A Taste of Emptiness

I arrived in Dublin in 1973, having joined the Bank of Ireland, and was training in the Head Office in Baggot Street. Away from home, it was the first time in my life I was not answerable to someone for how I spent my time; no one questioning where I was, or who I was spending time with. Strange after all those years,it felt wrong; there seemed to be too much space; there was a hollow feeling to it.

I think that hollow is the one that sometimes bringing loneliness, gets filled with drinking. Of course, it could also be filled with golf or dancing or..or..., but pubs are so accessible and they promise company or the illusion of company.I was at a loose end and I did find it lonely.This memory has very little to do with the poem Passage, but the "space, to wander in" brought it back - a disorientated state of mind.




PASSAGE.

We were lovers;
now I'm off,
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 the accident.

Ahead there is space,
to wander in,
to kick up dust;
space where fires won't burn.