Civilisation

 

 

At half six I turn on the news to see how the war is going.

 

Tracers are arcing down into the city;

the reporter keeps looking over his shoulder.

 

Shoes off, I stretch out,

 

rest my feet on the coffee table.

 

 

 

Evening

 

Evening light dozed on

his unwashed dishes;

years' old dust collected behind

hanging china plates;

the Sacred Heart looked on,

as ever,

smoked and sagging.

 

His face, at the table,

jerked unaccountably;

sometimes he choked on his tongue.

The mist of his young face

had cleared completely;

his smile was in a biscuit box

with his wedding photographs, letters

and the pieces of a broken pocket watch.

The effectiveness of simple

Picking up on the word 'simple' in the first line, the poem remains simple, and is  supremely effective for that. 

 

Suicide in the Trenches

by Siegfried Sassoon

 

I knew a simple soldier boy

 Who grinned at life in empty joy,

 Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

 And whistled early with the lark. 

 

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

 With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

 He put a bullet through his brain.

 No one spoke of him again.

 

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

 Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

 Sneak home and pray you'll never know

 The hell where youth and laughter go.

Spring

i

Bleached, bone-dry,

wind-scalded wood;

 

my spindled torso

weathered clean,

 

my curlicued roots

 

clamped in the earth.

ii

 

But Spring’s moist eyes

 

defied my fingers,

 

imagining freedom,
 

conspired with soil;

 

I grew round, bright

and brazen.

 

 

 

 

 

A carrier bag

A carrier bag, caught in a sycamore tree, heaved and pulled, strained itself skinny, thrashed to escape. Its mouth, a terrorized rip, was lightening in the branches.

A carrier bag gulped itself grotesque in the squall on the Lower Kimmage Road. In convulsion,  its face inflated to featurelessness.

A carrier bag flew by. I saw nothing but hands wringing.

  

          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.

 

 

 

 

How to say I love you

A red, red rose

by Robbie Burns

O my Luve's like a red, red rose

 That’s newly sprung in June;

 O my Luve's like the melodie

 That’s sweetly play'd in tune.

 As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

 So deep in luve am I:

 And I will luve thee still, my dear,

 Till a’ the seas gang dry: 

 Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

 And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

 I will luve thee still, my dear,

 While the sands o’ life shall run. 

 And fare thee well, my only Luve

 And fare thee well, a while!

 And I will come again, my Luve,

 Tho’ it were ten thousand mile. 

             It would be near impossible to express love more beautifully or more movingly than Burns’ second and third stanzas. Read them out loud and slowly. Better still sing them. This version with Eddi Reader and Alan Kelly is just gorgeous. What a stunning voice she has, and his playing is exquisite.

             I went to see them and the rest of the band some months back. They put on a fantastic show, one of the most enjoyable gigs I’ve ever been to. So, what I'm saying is, if you get the chance........................Of course, I should point out that Alan Kelly is a Roscommon man.

 

The Douglas Hyde Conference 2014

I’m chairing this year’s conference, which takes place on July 18^th in Ballaghaderreen. Entitled ‘The Unsaved Harvest: Rural Ireland’s Cultural Heritage’, it celebrates the richness of rural Ireland’s culture, with talks, discussion, poetry, music  and song. Taking counties from the north midlands and northwest as typical of rural Ireland, it will highlight the greatness of figures such as John McGahern, Oliver Goldsmith,  Douglas Hyde,Turlough O’Carolan, James Coleman, Margaret Cousins and Brian O’Doherty, not just in Irish culture, but world culture.

And it asks the question, are we making enough of this  cultural heritage?  When people travel through Ireland, are they aware that they are passing through the landscapes that inspired some of these towering names.

A great line up of speakers and entertainers including Vincent Woods, Brian Leyden, Catherine Marshall, W.J. McCormack ( aka Hugh Maxton)and  Noel O’Grady among others will bring it all life. A wonderful day is in store.

 

from Painting Women

 

 

 

 

Her skin is clear and white (as I see it);

he picks out the heat and cold

that is in her flesh

so her belly is blue and green;

colours I have seen

where rubbish stirs in low tide.

She is a timber frame

a thousand colours.

They are inside each other

wash in and out of each other;

overlapping, under-lapping.

They graze on each other;

slap, fall, meld, hide,

shimmer, swelter, drown;

no rules until completion.

The brush, searching for challenges,

rushes about the page putting out fires

anxious for a thousand perfections

All Dublin in your armchair

If ever you plan to go to Dublin, I suggest you make a virtual tour first, and you'll no finer way to wander through the city than by Storymap. Meet the story-tellers, poets and writers: Laurence Foster, Dermot Healy, Noel O'Grady, Paula Meehan and a host of  others. Dubliners and non-Dubliners, hear their voices and their stories; arrive in Dublin with your yap in place.

 So, I give you a gateway to Dublin; step through, and enjoy. http://storymap.ie/  

Irish trad but as you know it

Like the cover design, Ensemble Ériu's music is Irish but not typical; the inclusion of some unorthodox instruments gives it a very fresh sound. It's brilliant. Visit here http://ensembleeriu.com/

 

Ensemble Ériu are

Jack Talty: concertina, electronics

Neil O’ Loghlen: double bass, flute & whistle

Matthew Berrill: Clarinet

Matthew Jacobson: Marimba, Drums

Jeremy Spencer: Fiddle

Úna McGinty: Fiddle, Viola

Paddy Groenland: Guitar

Sam Perkin: Keyboards

Colm O’ Hara: Trombone

Saileog Ní Cheannabháin: Voice

The Rathmines Roar

Stone: Christian and Pre-christian

Whether it be the ruined castles or celtic crosses, megalithic dolmens or round towers,  Ireland's greatest treasures are made of stone. To my mind, they are at their most beautiful when you come upon them expectedly: unsign-posted, undeveloped. And yet we need them as part of our tourism. It's an old bone of contention now, but I would go for heritage centres  away from these sites. I'd go for centres in local towns that highlight what's in the district, supply maps, information, lore.

If there must be development at the site, I'd go for small; not overwhelming. Carrowmore neolithic cemetery ( 6000 to 3000 BC) in Sligo is a case of the latter; the centre is modest, allowing the megalithic remains their space on the landscape.

St Patrick's Well at Oran, Co Roscommon would be passed in the blink of an eye as one drives around a bend on a road. The remains of the nearby round tower is the only evidence of its ancient importance. The unexpected discovery of the round tower added hugely to the pleasure of seeing the well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           St Patrick's Well at Oran, Co. Roscommon

St Patrick's Well at Oran, Co. Roscommon

 

Megalithic Tomb inside Cairn at Carrowmore, Sligo

Mick O'Dea, the artist

Mick O'Dea is perhaps best known for his portraits; his 2010 portrait of Brian Friel being a beautiful example of what he does so wonderfully.

But as the YouTube video above shows, he is far more than a portraitist. This will be borne out by a visit to his website, which I strongly recommend.

http://mickodea.carbonmade.com/

City Lives

 

City Lives.

They shout into space,

answer each other like whales

across great haunted distances;

they never meet,

only sound waves ever meet.

  

Alone in their canyons,

hives,

shoals

they roar.

Rooms upon rooms

upon houses upon houses

upon streets upon streets:

roars spilling out,

spilling over,

spilling down.

 

A million sound waves,

a million discordancies

tumbling, surging, 

pouring out

onto the streets,

into the traffic,

wheels, cogs, pistons:

 

that cannibal jazz

of cities.

 

A poem about something I can hardly explain

This poem is about something I can hardly explain,

our twenty-third year in this house,

the laburnum, again, filling our bedroom window

with its solar brilliance.

We met Graham outside, on the street.

He said “didn’t you hear about Evelyn, (his wife),

we buried her last Saturday.

I looked at your house, you were away.”

I am in bed. My wife,

her arm casually across me, is sleeping.

I am looking at the laburnum;

I look at it like this every year.