At last, my first Irish poem

It has taken a long time, my Irish is getting there but slowly; I've a long way to go. A friend of mine suggested that we both take the plunge, mind you his command of the language is far greater than mine.

Anyway, I’ve wanted to write in Irish for a long time; the language suggests poems that English doesn’t. It brings me closer to the land, its atmosphere and its grain. Even though I lack the linguistic fluency, it still prompts me with words that convey more deeply the textures of the landscape and the spirit of the people who have lived here speaking with these words before me.

In the past, and perhaps still in some quarters, one of the slights thrown at the Irish language questioned the point of  a language that had forty different words for the same seaweed but was adrift (excuse the pun) in modern lingo. There are few who would quibble with Cezanne's multiple takes on Mont Sainte-Victoire or Monet's garden scenes.The same applies in language, different words bring different nuances; they open different circuits in the brain. A wider vocabulary gives rise to a wider richer range of expression. This applies to the use of different  languages also.

So, some might say I’ve got a nerve, but one of the blessings of blogging is having a reason to write and a place to post the efforts. I would, however, be very grateful to any reader who has enough Irish to correct my grammar, as I’m fairly sure there’s changes to be made.

I've included a rough translation below.

Oileán     

Sé an suaimhneas timpeall na dtithe a théann i bhfeidhm ort;

tá tú in ann gnáthsaol an phobail a shamhlú go héasca 

mar tá iarsmaí a shaolta scaipthe i ngach dtreo

ach iad go léir ag dul ar ais go mall go dtí an cré.

Thall, torann fharraige mar a bhí go deo, bualadh saoil na ndaoine.

An cé, a bhí lán beo le gníomhaíocht na hiascairí

ag deisiú a líonta, ag ullamhú potaí gliomaíde,

gan bhád amhain feistiú ann inniu.

Agus rianta chruathain na ndaoine le féiceáil

sna garraíthe mór thimpeall, fíorglas le iarrachtaí na glúnta uilig;

na hiomairí a bhain siad, ann fós ach ina fhásach,

mar scríobhneoireacht ársa gur mhair cine laochaois anseo fadó.

Island

It's the calmness around the houses that strikes you/ you can easily imagine the lifestyle of the people/ because the remnants of their lives are scattered all around/but they're all going back slowly into the earth.

Beyond, the noise of the sea as it has always been, the beat of community life/the quay that was full of the activities of fishermen mending their nets, preparing their lobster pots/without a boat moored there today.

And the hardship of the people to be seen/in the fields all around, rich green with the efforts of all the generations/ the ridges they dug still there but overgrown/ like ancient writing that a heroic race lived here long ago.

Time, unchecked, steals lives.

Taken

Once, in a sodden, flaggered field
beside the river,
the current took me;
not a canoe but a trout,
a water’s flint smoothed by its flow,
a ripple’s almond.

All sleekness and fluidity,
all instinct;
a lidless eye running,
seeing and discarding,
gorged on movement,
passing all argument.

St Féichín's Warning

As hare – whiskers taut, eyes bulging –

he scours the mainland

in the grey hour of evening

when demons go searching for currency.

Sitting sentinel on day’s shore-line,

grabbing at the seen and the half-seen,

reining in phantasms,

deciphering the commotions of molecules,

he senses, suddenly, a juddering in the air

from around some looming presence 

– an approaching darkness, darker than night – 

and an ice-bolt hits him.

With the flesh creeping along his flanks,

he kicks back his hind legs

and bounds through the tussocks,

to the church in the hollow.

The bell’s baleful clonk, strange at this hour,

draws shadowy figures out of the night

into a bedraggled huddle

standing anxiously in the sanctuary of the church.

.

Féichín, with one last tug on the rope,

and hare’s wild gaze in his eyes,

turns to them gravely

to announce the arrival of Satan on Omey.

And on that ominous note, happy new year. 

Wonder at a City Pond

Mallards, water hens, swans; all round-bellied on the pond

or rotated 180, peaky-arsed upwards, delving for food.

Down there the arrow-headed, sleek-sided, taper-tailed

dart between beaks, hooks and gobble-jaws.

The magnificent refinement of bodies here at a city pond;

we strike the pavement to move along

as a flock of gulls, maybe fifty or sixty, swoop low over the water,

cutting the air; blades, slivers, silver clavicles.

I can't help feeling after the breakdown of the recent climate conference in Madrid, that it's time for us to insist through the ballot box that breakdowns are no longer acceptable, that representatives should be locked in until resolutions are found. It's gone too late, and too catastrophic to be accepting less.
And, as for those who don't accept climate change as a reality, we should insist on their participation; whether accepted or not, the implications are too great for anyone to be taking risks with our children's futures.
With the greatest hopes for enlightenment among our leaders, let's hope for a great 2020, as in vision and the new year. M

On a clear moonlit night I fell asleep in a field

and dreamt I was sleeping there.

All night a terror of being vulnerable

stood just beyond the pool of my dreaming,

 immediately outside my defences,

even my waking.

No People

The hunch-doubled thorns,

ingrown pantries

dung-puddled;

the moss-stone walls

tumble-gapped.

The nettle-cracked doorway,

lintel-fallen

byre-footed;

the cloud curtained windows

elder-berried.

The stone-sheltered air

bumbled still,

ruin-reverent;

the submerged garden ridges

dumb-founded.

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.

Market, Emily Square, 60's

                            Gulls
pecking in the litter of clothes,
scarved heads bobbing
on the spume


for there were more coins than notes.

      

    Shoes,

their uppers and stitch-work

bent this way and that,

fingers inserted to the toe

for they had more copper than silver.

                                       Spoils,

back and back and back,

that incessant wrangling

over threadbare rewards

for their’s was then far less than plenty.

Crucifixion Scene

I’m struck by the basketry of bones containing the thorax;

that unexpected view of internal anatomy,

a map of pain.

I think of Frida Kahlo, the broken ionic column that supported her,

the deer struck with so many arrows,

all contained within her defiance.

And then I see that the bones are not containment,

they are radiant;

they radiate strength.

Passing

Desert,

clouds of shifting

sands,

landscapes

forever passing by.

Moon,

blank-faced

forlorn,

always assumed

you were going somewhere.

Love Song

Here I am, grey haired and lonely,

singing out to sea in a voice that cannot compete

with the thunder of the tide;

yet still I persist, for nature has shaped me to it.

And if, by some unlikely chance, my song drew a mate,

she would almost certainly take umbrage,

be indignant at first sight;

but, as I’ve already pointed out, this is my only way of being.

So here I am, cursed to an activity

that degrading me, promises only further degradation;

churning out a song

that the waves themselves contrive to suppress.

Sleepless

Spent the night driving

my wheel-less car, light-less

to dawn’s road-less gravel.

Day, eventually projecting

itself in the round,

revealed the signposts,

all written in an unknown script.

Impressionist Poem

Ingots of light melt,

raft my bottle green worries

like water weed,

fill my eyes

with dizzying effervescence.

Break the seal of water,

unravel its fantasies;

the world is exhilaration;

see it

as water does.

Beyond Lace

She has just the dress, it’s short and floats

around her thighs but is tight at the waist.

She sees mens’ eyes on her when she wears it,
never acknowledges, but knows she has captivated  

them for a minute, maybe more: an electric shock

from brain to crotch after she has passed. 

She’ll put on the clear stockings with lace borders 

holding them snug around her upper thighs, that hand-like 

grip on her skin. She will leave her cunt unclothed 

under her dress, like breathing, a gag removed, sexy, 

herself, the way she knows she can be, is.

She will sit with her thighs crossed, the lace 

showing just beneath the hem of her dress,

her bare sex six inches above. How they would

strain to see beyond that lace, how their minds

would race with the faintest glimpse of her bare

flesh exposed for a moment with the re-crossing 

of her legs, the smallest shift of her body.

A drop lingers before falling from a leaf. Collecting

water from the blade, it quivers but holds, holds and 

holds till one molecule arrives that is too much to hold.

She knows about anticipation, how the infinitesimally 

small movement can turn a man’s mind, she has 

watched the drops and she has watched the men.

She will sit and talk and hold her drink between thumb

and forefinger as though it was a trinket.

She will allow her dress to rise to the place where

the sliver of her skin will tighten the mens’ penises; 

she will be chatty and smiling, occasionally shifting her 

thighs, looking into the men’s faces with charming 

nonchalance. Her eroticism brushing lightly against all

the exchanges of the evening, she will be utterly seduced
by her own sexiness.