How heavy is the weight of Vatican wealth?

Crosses in the cloakroom, please.

Were you going to write me a love-letter?

One of those  poems I come back to occasionally. It  changes each time:  the words, the  meaning and the atmosphere. Some poems defy you; that's good.




Were you going to write me a love-letter?

Did your fingers falter above the keys?

Was there the cacophony of grid-lock on the page,

lines of off-duty taxis:

words refusing to carry love?

At such a juncture, I, in the past, have let my fingers

tap-dance away from a love-letter,

tap a stammer,

morse to garble the unwritable truth.

What was the occasion?

It's 1908, Rathmines Town Hall is decked out in style. That July, the Summer Olympics were held in White City Stadium in White City, London.The Great Britain and Ireland team won 56 gold, 51 silver and 39 bronze medals. But I wonder can anyone explain why the Town Hall was wearing its finery?

Rag Trees

Rag trees are, of course, less common now. The faith that dressed them for centuries is in rapid decline. It's that fact that gives them a poignancy that's quite different to the  poignancy they had in their  heyday. Then it was sheer number of requests or appeals that hard-pressed believers had for the Almighty.

Rag Tree

A thousand dancers for Patrick’s stone eyes:

leg-kicking

heel-tapping

thigh-slapping;

each one a soul treading thin air.

A thousand clamours for Patrick’s stone ears:

tongue-clicking

finger-snapping

hand-clapping;

each petition a gutt'ring flare.

In memory of my mother

She was

Two cups of flour resourceful

Plumb-line straight

Three sides of a triangle logical

Rain-coat wise

Five woollen blankets caring.

Confession

Gulls curdled out of the tide;

spume flew then settled.

I confessed at the top of my voice

to an ocean convulsed in its own troubles.

All of it disappeared in the spray and the tumult, 

then I sang.

And my voice danced away

over the strand.

Take it easy

i

To think of you in that bed,

twenty years on,

going the same way he did,

but without hope.

How do you close your eyes

to catch a night’s sleep?

ii

Struggling for each breath,

(mouthfuls of air, for god’s sake!),

I said ‘Mam, stop working so hard’

Dying, and still forced to work.

‘Take it easy,

 take it easy.’

Her hold on my hand slackened,

her eyes fell to the side,

she took it easy,

That memory forces itself on me; even now, I sometimes wonder, did I speed her on her way?

60s.

It was the time of Afton and Albany,

Joe O’Neill’s band and the Adelaides,

hay forks sharing pub windows

with Daz and Persil; the Smithwicks sign

and the Harp sign, half-ones of Guinness.

It was a time of pipe-smoking

beneath naked bulbs and neon strips,

the priest in his cassock,

Hillman Hunters, Ford Corsairs,

Wilkinson Swords and Fruit Gums.

Of scarved heads at mass, berets,

the Messenger and the Far East,

dress-makers and blacksmiths;

hollowed faces in the County Home,

yanks, spick and span, in the sitting room.

On The Beach

When, at the end of the beach, I turned

to face that gleaming scimitar of strand,

the filigreed waves  hurdling landward,

the geode patterns beneath my feet,

a scythe of 12 oyster-catchers by the water,

their chevron markings perfect in that light,

I felt, suddenly, the glory of creation.

And, as I walked, I felt the completeness of my belonging,

 and my impermanence, like those scarves of sand blowing

ahead of the wind, and not at all sad for that,

and seeing too that beliefs are transitory,

that the earth will swallow all, and shine on

when all else has run its course.

Artur Widak's Photograpic Exhibition Highlighting The Refugees' Plight

 ‘The Path to Freedom:pictures illustrating the journey refugees are taking from 
 war-torn countries to Europe’ featuring the photographs of photojournalist 
 Artur Widak will be on display in Rathmines Library from November 17th  to 
 December 7th.
 The exhibition features some of Widak's most moving and thought-provoking 
 images,many of which have been highly acclaimed and have appeared in 
 publications such as The Guardian, Huffington Post, The Independent (UK), Le 
 Monde among many others . They portray, all too vividly, the hardships and 
 sadnesses that the Syrian refugees are enduring. It is impossible to view 
 these pictures and not be incensed at the ongoing inhumanity of it all. 

Widak will deliver a talk on his experiences at 6.30pm, Nov 17th in Rathmines 
 Library.

Speaking of Roscommon, The New Roscommon Writing Award is coming up

Then and Now

Light cavorting on the stream,

choruses of flies on dung,

and the flush green of Roscommon fields.

Whole afternoons I would spend

watching minnows dart

beneath those smidereens of sunlight.

Larder to larder, cold flowing weed,

combed fresh opulence.

No trickery in a jam jar; dull brown they died.

This morning sitting in Dublin;

smidereens of sunlight played on the ceiling

and I remembered this.

and speaking of Roscommon:

The NEW ROSCOMMON WRITING AWARD 2016 is organised as part of the county’s literature development programme. It is funded by Roscommon County Council and The Arts Council, and supported by the Roscommon Herald and by Shannonside FM.

The winner will receive a monetary prize of €500 and will have their winning entry printed in the Roscommon Herald. It will also be broadcast on Shannonside FM. (Four runners-up will receive €50 each)

Closing date for entries is 30 November 2016

Enquiries to

ghoare@roscommoncoco.ie.

Competition Rules

·         Entries, in English, on any theme, in any literary form, will be accepted.

·         The competition is open to anyone over 18. All entrants must have a connection with the county of Roscommon (born in, living in, currently working in, went to school in, etc).

·         Typed entries (handwritten entries cannot be accepted) must be no more than 500 words. Mark the number of words in your entry on the bottom of the page. Entries over the 500 word limit will be automatically disqualified. There is a limit of two entries per entrant.

·         Include your name, address and contact details, plus your connection to the county. Include these on a separate page, not on your entry. 

·         There is no entry fee. All entries must be received by 30 November 2016.

·         The competition will be adjudicated by Brian Leyden. The judge’s decision is final. 

·         Post your entry to: NEW ROSCOMMON WRITING AWARD 2016, Aras an Chontae, Roscommon Arts Office, Roscommon. You may also email your entry to: ghoare@roscommoncoco.ie. Title your email NEW ROSCOMMON WRITING AWARD 2016.

·         The names of the shortlisted writers will be announced in local media and online at http://www.roscommoncoco.ie/en/Services/Comm_Ent/Arts_Office/literature.htm

·         The awards ceremony will take place early in 2017, on a date and at a venue to be announced. 

I asked Picasso what he did on September 6th, 1957 ̶ your birthday.

Just back from a few days in Barcelona where I visited the wonderful Museu Picasso. In particular, I enjoyed his Las Meninas Series. This series includes the subset of 9 paintings called The Pigeons which he started on Sept 6th 1957, before returning to Las Meninas on Sept 14th. Though very different in content, he always considered the 9 Pigeons paintings among the 58 Las Meninas Series; I think I know why.

The Pigeons, Picasso. Sept 6th, 1957

I asked Picasso what he did on September 6^th, 1957  ̶   your birthday.

“I was working on Las Meninas. I had put an almost human face

on the Margarida Maria and there the ideas stalled.

On my balcony, pigeons emerged from fluffed up shapelessness.”

Out of the ocean into air,

into clanging space,

grabbing at the caul of light around you.

“I needed to resuscitate a sense of the absurd;

the pigeons twitched

with comic self-consciousness.”

Water’s membrane shut behind you,

things were sounding into being;

you were sounding into being.

“The round angled; the space faceted”, said Picasso. 

Submissions, Deadlines, Votes and a little bit of Appalachian Goodness

2017 Strokestown International Poetry Festival Competitions

Closing date:  2nd December, 2016

·         The 2017 Strokestown International Poetry Festival Competitions are now open for entries. The closing date for the competitions has been brought forward, to facilitate the publication of a festival anthology in which poems from shortlisted entrants for the two main competitions, English and Irish, will feature alongside the work of the well known judges and other poets who will read at the 2017 festival. Maura Dooley and Paddy Bushe will judge the Strokestown International Poetry Prize for a poem in English, which carries a prize of €2000. Duais de hÍde, which carries a prize of €500 for a poem in Irish, will be judged by Cathal Ó Searcaigh. Shortlisted poets for each of these competitions will also be asked to read a selection of their poems as part of the festival, and will receive a reading fee of €200. The Percy French Prize for humorous poetry will be judged by Margaret Hickey, and the Roscommon Poets’ Prize by Jessamine O’Connor. For details, rules and entry forms see www.strokestownpoetry.org

Irish Poem of the Year’ 2016

·      There are 4 days left to vote for winner of The inaugural ‘Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards Irish Poem of the Year’ 2016. I am pleased to see Jane Clarke among the four short-listed poets.

              

You might like to read 4 finalists and vote for your winner. Here are the poems http://writersweek.ie/the-listowel-writers-week-irish-poem-of-the-year-2016-winners/

and here's where to vote  http://www.irishbookawards.irish/vote2016/

·      

       Avant Appal(achia)

       Submission Deadline

      A reminder from Sabne Raznik that the deadline for submissions to Issue 2 of Avant Appal(achia) ezine is November 30, 2016. They are looking for poetry, short stories, and visual art; your wildest, most experimental.  (Issue) 2 will go live on December 15, 2016. Details at www.avantappalachia.com

Waiting for the One

Homo Sapiens

They were anxious to put as many genera between us and ape

as possible; so each new jaw-bone, each different skull,

each new femur became a new genus.

Gradually then, all these rungs were being discovered.

Then someone said " Hey, where’s the cut-off !"

No one knew, it hadn't been discovered,

or had but wasn't recognized.

So we're still waiting for him who'll come to announce:

"Hallelujah, this is The Bone,

 the One that'll divide the fossil record into b.b. and a.b.

(before and after bone).”

Farmland in Meath

Hill of Tara

                                                 

                                               From up here, this landscape is a cubist composition ─

    a shattered windscreen.

                      Closer: traces of ancient earthworks ─

                                  pre-historic worm spirals beneath the skin.

                            Closer: tumuli, eyes fixed to the cosmos ─

birthmarks of science.

                     Closer: chevrons, spirals, sunbursts ─

birthmarks of art.