Damp and Drizzle.

     

Damp wet, wet, wet.

Grim drizzle

Leaning against the wall

All day.

If I could hum the mood

In your ear

You'd know what I mean;

You'd remember.

Representative of the Common Man?

I was listening, recently, to an interview in which an Irish businessman was outlining the necessity of capitalism. It was a familiar story: those who create wealth for all must have the reward of affluence to motivate their efforts. That wealth is then divvied up among all; he would acknowledge that there were basic entitlements at the lower end e.g. education, a home etc. His philosophy acknowledges that greed is a driver for humankind, and inequality is an inescapable aspect of it all. So be it.

Part of the reward for wealth, though, is the belonging to a class that can ‘afford’ privilege; privilege that permeates all facets of life, that is passed onto succeeding generations, deserving or not. Within a skip and a hop from that philosophy then, we have the divided society in which many are set for cannon fodder (or one of its peacetime guises) and others to be part of the elite who can enjoy uninterrupted comfort through the privations of others.

This, then, leads me to wonder how anyone can imagine that someone like Donald Trump can possibly be a suitable representative for the American in the street.

Margaret.     (d. 1961)

 

Child that played and skipped

and ran, 

climbed among the trees

when the adult was as far away

as death itself;

woman in a countryside

of old men and their wives

turning spidery;

rain and years

between herself and old age;

London: Irish skivvy, 

that rolling unrolling knot

of mop, bucket and woman 

paid with poverty for accepting

oblivion.

Spitalfields and squalor;

a dark coat, bark-rough face

beaten to a glower;

culprit and victim,

drink took them both.

When yellow was the perfect colour

Yellow has that unfortunate connotation in battle. But yellow is a warm light. And blazing gorse is the fullest vent of Summer's exuberance. A yellow rose on the verge of full bloom is the promise of just that. 

The Yellow Rose.

                for Alan Biddle (1952-1994).

When his eyes had shut for good

and his face was just a face

and conversation had slowed

to the ebb and flow of memories

speaking among themselves,

a small gesture recast the day.

She placed a yellow rose on his chest

over the picture of the Sacred Heart.

The gentleness of that moment;

the single rose: how well chosen;

how well she chose it.

His face changed, full of ease

as through all his illness,

but death had sculpted warmth away.

His eyes shut against us,

fingers tangled up in rosary beads;

I'll remember him alive

or remember the rose when he was dead.

Rain and Imagination

The day darkens. Charcoal clouds hustle the blue across the sky, corral it into a far corner of the universe. The first drops fall, heavy as berries. In minutes the world is a blur. The sharp edges of landscape now diffuse; what was clear is now obscure. Imagination is released.

Monet. Cliffs of  Pourville, Rain

And then there is the rain in which thoughts come clear and perfectly defined.  Each having its own orbit; delicacy its beauty, still sharp as a bullet hole.

Gustave Caillebotte. The Yerres, Effect of Rain

Seeing

Inside yourself. In the space of yourself. Watching your feelings flying, litter in a gale, down the main strip. Seeing it all with that 'accident moment' acuity. A curious distance between you and your emotions, as close to being two as is possible. 

Seeing

discarded matches on the pub floor,

reflections in gutters,

cobwebs in the corners of ceilings,

petals shed and shriveling,

railings’ wrought iron curlicues,

broken windows, tattered curtains,

carrier bags snagged on branches,

the moon running along beside me,

heron one-legged by the pond,

a glove on the footpath;

each fleck, speck, flaw in your argument;

every minute branded, second burned

as thoroughly as a pipe smoker’s match.

Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership

Democracy seems to have little currency now beyond being a pretext to wage war. This agreement smacks of much that I hoped the EU wouldn't become. There's a  lot online regarding TTIP; this is a good place to start.

This was posted by 38 Degrees; worth visiting at https://home.38degrees.org.uk/

A Bottle of Whiskey

Whiskey is my best colour.

The bright eye in the glass

sucks on grief;

still Manhattan lights   

ring the  bay below.

Stomach the needle.

The yellow meter falls;

conversation curves with the bottle

and I fly, birdless wing.

At half past three

the genie is corpsed on the table.

A Nightmare

As a  child I had the nightmare of being lost in a forest, wandering blindly among alien-looking plant-life and slithering skulking animals. That universe is huge, and cluttered with unthinkable possibilities, almost none of them pleasant.

Where Are You.

Where are you.

Where are you child.

Among the spring green leaves

Naked as a lizard;

I hear your airy lilt,

Why are you humming.

From what remote well

Do these grotesque sounds come;

Dispatched, bleak cirrus

In the high skies of a child's voice,

Freezing all the forest

Into fairy-tale stillness.

Where are you,

Where are you child.

In what empty paradise;

Where's the tower that emits your eccentric song;

Against the frozen wings of which birds of paradise

Do you rub.

Carpet from her eye

There was a carpet from her eye,

I was fool to walk;

peacock not in the ha'penny

place with me.

She of the gold tabernacle;

I, the greedy eye,

passing shadows up the upward tail,

knowing, all the time, the blade in my wake.

For Ecstasy

He smashed his head

on a mountain-side;

fell pentagoning down;

earth exploding blossom-like

toward him.

They found his body,

knew that he had jumped,

but couldn’t find his head.

I tell you now,

his head is falling still.

Measure A Life Span

How many times did you dip a spoon  into  sugar, drink a cup of tea, eat a slice of bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread, dip a spoon, drink a cup, eat bread.................................

 The Fall 

When apples fall

like pocket watches

among the trees

and leaves

like closing old hands,

the fog is rising,

old souls

over the green. 

There is a quietness

like padded feet

or, quietest of all,

the droplets

playing in the hedge;

and the grumpy whimper

of hedgehogs

scuttling for their sleep. 

Most of all I notice

the thud of Winters

changing children into men.

Moon poem

Desire brushing my face

like some woman’s hair.

Trapped in a drizzle of muscles,

beneath a moon

filling the world with longing

and hopeless space.

Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition

Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition 2016 has announced arrangements for the 2016 poetry competition. Prizes are €250 first prize, 2 prizes of €50 for highly commended.  This year’s judge is Ross Donlon (http://www.rossdonlon.com/index.html ) and the closing date is June 30^th. Part of the Boyle Arts Festival, the Awards Ceremony takes place in the splendid King House on July 30th.

  

Tel 00 353 (0) 7196 63085 info@boylearts.com www.boylearts.com

You Take the Sea; I'll Take the Land

You Take the Sea; I’ll Take the Land.

            

Then, growing cautious of air currents,

my ears will extend to points,

nose become a snout, eyes flinty.

I will grow a coat of hair to thwart the wind,

jointed limbs that angle to take a fall.

Your sides will be sleek to cut the water,

your face an arrow, even eye-lids planed to nothing.

Your skin will have the dapples of flowing liquid,

drop-shaped scales. By then, of course,

we will not know each other at all.

Irish steps and places very much alive in the U.S.

While browsing the net, looking through Irish  place-names that have been exported to America, I landed on some footage of a four-year Irish dancer, Oscar Donnelly,  performing the set dance the Kilkenny Races at a speed that would likely win the Kilkenny races. Take a look: http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/4-year-old-Irish-dancer-could-be-the-worlds-next-Michael-Flatley-VIDEO.html          Prodigious, I'm guessing, we'll hear the name again..

Back to the place-names, I was checking out County Roscommon, only to find counties Clare, Wexford and Antrim also exist in Michigan. Apparently there are 21 Dublin towns is the U.S. and Galway town is in Saratoga County, New York as is Waterford town.  There are a number of Limericks, Kildares; Baltimore of course, Newry, Tyrone,  Killarney, Mayo, Letterkenny, Kilkenny, Bantry, lots of Avocas, Derry, Londonderry, Duncannon, Dundalk and many more. Not surprising, I suppose, as immigrants tried to cling to a little bit of home. There’s a list of Irish place-names abroad at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_place_names_in_other_countries#Placenames_by_Irish_county

I'm particularly struck by the Killarney in Zimbabwe, listed on this page, not to mention Conamara in outer space. Let’s hope the Gaelic language is holding up out there.

Mind you it’s not been all one way, there’s a very small Boston in Co. Clare, and, very impressively, America sits snuggly, a townland in Co Roscommon.