Armani Stops at our House

I was sitting opposite this guy one Friday evening. We were both waiting in the lobby of one of the bigger multi-national companies in Dublin. He had the camera ready to go for the weekend. The words for the poem came quickly.

Armani Stops at our House

Ferrari
sunbathing on the verge,

Armani
surveyed from the wall.

Rolex
grinning up a cuff,

Nikon
stole grand-dad’s gappy smile.

Ray-bans
snapping the moment shut,

Gucci
stepped from the grass;

Pirelli
spat dust into our gateway.

Cezanne's mountain

I would love to write a series of poems to accompany Cezanne's many paintings of Mont Sainte Victoire near Aix de Provence. I love the play of light, different times of day,year, catching the mountain in different moods. His ability to find so much in the same inanimate rock, to paint it in different guises, like characters on a stage. I love the diamond facets, the iceberg, the turbulence, menace,ghostliness, disappearance, its solidity, its transparency, remoteness, closeness, blueness, whiteness.

That ability to see so much, to make the mass so ethereal but as often so solid and present.That would be an achievement for a poet.

It would be nice if someone would translate the following YouTube video (thanks to manonous for uploading), but even without translation I enjoy the painting of Cezanne's mountain.

Here's my start:

Cezanne's Mountain

1.

Like ice,
like iron,
like glass,

like air, granite.

The sun inside it,
through it,
off it.

Purpling into thunder,

convulsing cumulusly,
bulging
into storm.

2.
Sugary brilliance this morning,
the brow of Provence
clear as the first day:
a tooth,a molar

In Sickness There Was Only You

Frequently the years knock rough edges off a character. In this instance, an acquaintance was on her deathbed before I got to see the lovable side of her personality. A great pity.

In sickness there was only you


light as a feather,
relieved of the weight
of position and pride;

neither bluff nor brashness
nor the strength
to be more than your dying self.

The Truth

As much and all as we admire the truth, sometimes we must keep it tethered and locked away. Sometimes it’s just too fearsome a beast.When Homer Simpson said "It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen",he was right; we must sometimes make a judgment as to what the listener can bear to hear.

And if sometimes it’s difficult to tell the truth, sometimes too it’s difficult not to. This from "Sunfire".


The Wind Claps The Slates

The wind claps the slates;
all night they are hooves running berserk,
all night the wind is inciting them;
all night.

At twenty past two and twenty past three
and twenty past four I am looking at you;
how I would love to have hooves to come
crashing through your sleep, to burst into
your solitude.

And there I would, for better or worse,
demolish the muzzled years with as much
violence as reverberates beneath iron shoes,
as causes such a frenzy in stone that slates
stampede.

Wassa Wassa in Rathmines

Wassa Wassa – 3.00 pm Rathmines Sq (Previously swimming pool car park).
A huge success at last year's festival; Wassa Wassa, a West African percussion, song and dance group, are back again this year with their traditional rhythms and dance, contemporary and traditional African songs, adding their own arrangements and wearing traditional costumes and hats you won’t forget!

A New Rathmines Festival

Festival Under The Clock is a one day festival happening on 20th March. One of the events on the day is MuteFish, a band that mixes trad Irish with Eastern European music in a very exciting, very energetic way. Here's a sample.........come for the rest!

Programme of Events (Festival Under The Clock)

TOWN HALL RATHMINES
(Please note there is limited capacity in the Town Hall. Admission on a
first come basis. All events are FREE.)

Saturday 20th March

1:00pm Anatoly Kudryavitsky
Reading by the Russian-Irish novelist, poet and literary translator.

1:45pm Vereneja
Dance group with an eastern European
heritage, perform dances from all over the world.

2:15pm Ostroha Dance Group
Slovakian Dancers performing traditional
Eastern European folk. A Cultural event to be enjoyed by all the family.

3:00pm Vladimir Jablokov
This Slovakian violinist and his quartet
are a must see, giving the audience a
truly unique performance.

4.15pm MuteFish
Traditional music as you’ve never seen it before. A high energy performance.

8.00pm Eric Lalor
After touring with Des Bishop on his
record breaking “Fitting In Tour” Eric Lalor has truly made a name for himself. Belly achingly funny.

9.00pm Don Baker
Irish blues musician and actor. He is a legend. A performance not to be missed.




FAMILY FUN DAY
RATHMINES SQUARE
(previously swimming pool car park)
Saturday 20th March

12:00pm Historical Walk of Rathmines leaving the square.

2:00pm Traditional Irish Music, there will also be face painting, balloon modeling, stilt walkers.

3:00pm Wassa Wassa Dance Group. AInvited back after a wonderful performance at last year's festival, don't miss this riveting performance of African music and dance.




ANCHOR BAY FILM DAY RATHMINES TOWN HALL

11.00am Little Princess Energetic and Charming a must see for any little boy or girl (G)
1.00pm Irish Premiere of Wow Wow Woopsie
Animated movie featuring the voice of Beyonce Knowles. (G)
3.00pm Paper Heart Comedy and romance; another great performance by Michael Cera. (15)
5.00pm I Sell The Dead A frightful insight into the life of a 19th century grave robber. (15)
7.00 pm Irish Premiere of The Graves
A horror to satisfy the most eager of horror fans.(18)
9.00pm Irish Premiere of Slammin Salmon
The latest comedy from Broken Lizard

Festival Under the Clock 2010, Rathmines

http://festivalundertheclock.webs.com/




Festival Under The Clock happens on 20th March 2010 in Rathmines Town Hall and on Rathmines Road.

A totally free, one day festival with blues man Don Baker, violinist Vladimir Jablokov, comedian Eric Lawlor. Also Mutefish, folk dancing from Eastern Europe and street performances at the newly built Rathmines Square (old swimming pool car park ).And if that's not enough there's a mini film festival too running from morning to late with a programme that covers all ages.

The day is organised by students of Rathminess College in conjunction with Dublin City Council.

It’ll be party day in Rathmines. I’ll post details next week.

The Empty Countryside

This poem from Sunfire is based on rural Ireland of the eighties,when the country was dotted with houses beginning to decay as they became peopled by elderly people or empty houses where parents or grandparents had died, children emigrated or in Dublin, no money to renovate. Today there are similarities, but it's the Chinese, eastern Europeans,Africans, who came for a while,that are leaving in their droves after the short-lived boom.

And there are thousands of empty houses, newly built houses, unfinished, half-finished; housing estates on the edges of towns left to be abandoned building sites. Without ever having been inhabited they lack the atmosphere which inspired this poem,they stand like rotting teeth on the landscape.

Inheriting The Land

Here the sea is no more than a sigh in a shell;
conversations speed past, pole high, Dublin to Galway
and music is the wind whistling beneath a door.
Slightness describes Summer's step,
stonework its skies; a little light drips
from its edges but it's falling from a miser's hand.
Across the fields the church, within its necklace
of dead congregations, is a rusty hinge;
a place filled with a century's stillness.
And the ivy-choked trees lean closer together
like old men guessing at each others' words.

If you were to fly over these patchwork hills,
along the hedgerows and through the lightless haggards,
you wouldn't meet a soul. The old farmers are sitting
in their twilight kitchens, their families standing
on the mantlepiece in the other room that's never used
with their faces tanned beneath American skies.
Only the din of crows seeps into that silence;
crows more numerous than leaves on the sycamores,
always bickering, hogging the light,
building their cities, staking their inheritance.

Separation

This poem from "Turn Your Head" is one of those I am happiest with. It says what I wanted it to in a striking way. The separation described is complete, the poem's logic builds to an appropriate climax, the sadness heightened by the absolute separation of land and sea. The last sentence hits a tragic truth for many people.

Growing Apart - A Separation.

You take the sea, I’ll take the land.
Growing cautious in air currents
my ears will extend to points,
my nose grow long, eyes flinty.
I will have 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 recognize each other at all.

Amended Google Book Settlement agreement

I am very grateful to Gill Spraggs for clarifying the issues around the Google Book Settlement agreement, she helped me greatly in my decision.This email, concerning the amended settlement and the changes as they relate to authors in Ireland and the U.K., arrived today.I have included a link to her website in the the links section below.



Hi Michael,

The Google Book Settlement agreement was withdrawn for redrafting in September, following serious criticism of it by the US Department of Justice. An amended version was filed with the court on 13 November. The major change was the exclusion of most books published outside the US - with the exception of books published in the UK, Australia and Canada.

Ireland as a publishing territory is now outside the settlement, but of course many Irish writers have published with British and US publishers.

There is a new opt-out period which will end on 28 January 2010.Authors who opted out of the settlement earlier this year do not need to do so a second time.

As you are aware, doing nothing at this point amounts to staying opted in.

I am circulating my latest paper, 'The Google Book Settlement: a survival aid for UK authors'.

It sets out to provide authors with information that will help them a)decide whether to opt out of the settlement b) manage their copyrights within the complicated framework set up by the settlement agreement, if they decide to stay in. There are appendices on how to opt out, and how to find out more about actively opting in and 'claiming' works.

I attach a copy, and also a copy of a shorter paper that explains how the GBS offers a particularly raw deal to poets and other authors who have had work published in anthologies.

They may also be found online at:

http://www.gillianspraggs.com/gbs/GBS_survival_aid.html

and

http://www.gillianspraggs.com/gbs/inserts.html

Please forward this email, with the attached papers, to anyone you know
who may find it helpful.

All the best,

--
------------------------------------------------------
Gillian Spraggs (Dr)


http://www.gillianspraggs.com

http://www.outlawsandhighwaymen.com

you build the fire
and I will show you something wonderful:
a big ball of snow!

(Basho 1686)


I have separated this from its prose-written context, but what I love is that it's a gentle explosion. Like all good haiku, the spare writing creates space for the reader to wander in; it’s all subtlety. How I wish I could achieve the same.

A Memory of Ireland Past

Since Christmas brings us back to family,loved ones and our memories of those who are gone, I thought I'd post this memory. It was another time, the mid-sixties.(from "Sunfire")


Visiting the Corsetmaker.

Miss Gately, you know, the corsetmaker; her cottage thatched and whitewashed beneath sycamores ragged with crows and their bickering.

A Sunday afternoon, my mother walking to the red door and it opened and closed and nothing else stirring for ages but ourselves in the back of the white consul with the red roof at the end of the avenue, just outside the gate;stone walls and lichen patches wallpapering our afternoon.Father dropping off in the driver’s seat while Micheal O'Hehir commentated on matches, one after another, without ever taking a breath in all that pipe smoke; matches collecting in the ash-tray all burnt to tiny black bird bones and the condensation all used up with words and faces dribbling pathetically into shapeless bad temper. Over and over: will she ever come out, can’t we go now,why do we always have to come, move your legs; till eventually she would reappear, a slap in the doorway, motor jauntily, red-headed,back to the car like it’s been five minutes or something, and Dad’s awake, reversing from the gate, back into the remains of a Sunday afternoon.

And I never knew what went on in there; never saw who opened the door,never saw a package, never heard anything about it. My father didn’t know either. I remember she took my sister with her when my sister was in secondary school;I wouldn’t have wanted to join them anyway,it was obviously a woman’s house.

Copenhagen Failure

Calculations show that the average Chinese person uses, more or less, the sustainable level of environmental resources for the maintenance of the world’s current population size; the average European uses double what’s sustainable and the typical American uses a whooping four times this.(from the BBC).

Obviously our western lifestyle is highly destructive to the planet. Our championing of human rights does not extend to our grandchildren. The damage continues, and our leaders have left Copenhagen without a treaty.

I read Obama has suggested a $10 billion per annum package for climate change when there's a $700 billion defence budget.What environmental damage is wrought by bombs and warfare, not to mention chasing fictitious weapons of mass destruction.Basic ecology teaches us that a human footstep affects the balance in a habitat.




Interference.


A fish is dreaming,
elbow deep.

With my fingertip
I draw a herring-bone
across his heaven;
he bolts.

Now the lake dreams,
empty like a canyon.

Sure Sight

The following, a love poem from "Turn Your Head"

Sure Sight


I see
pearl-like
dawn
in
your face

a desolate
blue
yonder
in
your irises

the wash
of slivered
moonlight
in
your smile

I know of
nowhere
less trodden
more
perfect

I contract
to be
forever
an explorer
in that universe.