New Poem-Nature is Music

Following on from the last post,  this is one of the new poems.I'm using it as an introduction to the piper's music, the music of nature.

Music is a stream

whose fingers, knuckling over boulders,

send droplets trickling into crevices, tinkling;

gurgles bass notes in hollows beneath the rocks,

spills soprano trills

that burst into the white noise of spray.

Music is the wind

that whistles high notes in the leaves

low in a bowl of mountain-side;

that whistles sad through a stone wall;

laughs in a stand of nettles.

Music is all that stirs on the earth;

the blackbird standing on the morning

trout etching circles at noon

raucous crows bickering with evening

a fox tearing a hole in the night-time.

Following a Different Piper

It’s been a busy and productive three weeks. After researching mythology associated with Irish neolithic sites, particularly Brewel Hill and Killeen Cormac in County Kildare, Loughcrew in County Meath, I have written 12 new poems to accompany a forthcoming exhibition of paintings by Elaine Leigh, a colleague of mine. Elaine’s images draw on stories related to these sites: the piper and dancers turned to stone on Brewel Hill; the Cailleach, goddess of winter, who scattered the stones that gave rise the cairns at Loughcrew; the Púca, (related to Puck), shape shifter and mischief-maker in Celtic lore.

The paintings are abstract: suggestions of human visages in stone, orbs of energy like flowers on stalks that are threads through time, ballerina-like trees, skeletal heads of horses, hounds, goats: the various incarnations of the Púca. They are richly coloured in gold, crimson and azure blue, beautifully rendered, highly original, full of energy, absorbing and evocative.

For me, it has been a change in direction. Not altogether my comfort zone: getting the balance between the modern and ancient proved difficult. Should there be constant reference to oak woods and hazel copses, should I use November or Samhain; keeping the “faery” element without becoming 19th century presents problems.

It has been instructive; the difficulty of writing poems that are not merely retelling what is already in the images, that provide information on the images while retaining artistic merit in themselves; poems that complement the spirit and mood of the paintings. Has it worked? I have no doubt about Elaine Leigh’s work, and I’m looking forward to your judgements on mine.

On a different tack but, coincidently, related, this Thursday there will be two sessions of story-telling in Rathmines Library at 2pm and 5pm. A fantastic opportunity to hear wonderful tellers weave their magic.

Life Journey

This nightmare sequence is a life journey. My life hasn't been nightmarish, thankfully, but yet, this sequence is appropriate. I suppose, set against certain expectations, many lives can have bleak countenances.



Travelling.

These gates are always swinging:
they screech,
squeal at each other.
These gates are jaws;
without partners,
they are harmless.

Now a field of pistons;
here work is the law.
Day and night they strain;
groaning up, collapsing down.
These pistons are muscles
betrayed by humans.

And this is the room of wings;
hold tighter.
These wingsflap, frighten the air;
have pity on the wings,
they have no direction,
only agitation.

Finally space
where molecules disband.
Unmoored
we fall;
terrorized by incomprehension
we scream into eternity.

“The world is your oyster”.

Shortly
the years will turn homeward,
their promises
still tight in their fists.


Endless corridors
leading nowhere,
crammed with people
all tumbling on.

Damp and Drizzle.

Damp wet, wet, wet.

Grim drizzle

Leaning against the wall

All day.



If I could hum the mood

Into your ear

You'd know what I mean;

You'd remember.

Apparitions

Good Friday and Christmas Night; my religious belief was so strong that I expected something to happen. I expected the word to become, if not flesh, spectre. In driving homecatholic beliefs, we were made more aware of the personalities than the teachings. The gospel stories were vivid in our minds and almost on equal billing were the Lourdes and Fatima apparitions. There was always the threat of divine intervention: punishments at worst, but at the very least, dire warnings complete with revolving spectral solar displays.

The significance of these two days in particular, the sorry state of the world - the treat of a third world war was palpablein the Cold War years of the sixties, I remember a Christian Brother telling us in 1967 that we probably wouldn’t survive the year – made an apparition a fairly likely occurrence. Our upbringing was strongly religious, that put me on the front line for a visitation.


The Dread of an Apparition

The most effective means
of avoiding a death fright
by apparition
might have been my blanket
but for the thinness of its cover
and the need to obey
Heaven's commands
which do not stop at blankets.
The problem was Mary's
predilection for teens
and my undoubted piety.
Therefore I can say
without any hesitation,
my earliest plans to reject
Catholicism - thereby
putting myselfsafely
beyond the fence -
were due to apparitions;
their lightning
and ghastly messages.

Revisiting Lough Ree

Morning comes colourless;
trees stoop to the lake like pilgrims
witnessing images that are riddles in the water.

A sudden shriek: “Over here, no here, over here.”
I see nothing; the lake keeps its children chilled
in ice buckets among the reeds.

Once I trailed a ripple from a boat
that beveled this water. I’ll remember the oars’
loud soft thud, slap, lick till I die.

It was June. Insects teemed on the surface.
The sun, that tanned our backs, lulled the countryside
into sleep before the fields were even cranked.

My father was there.

Now December.The lake drags its cutlery
through this cress-green landscape
with an indifference that leaves memories shivering.

Dayroom

A scene from 40 yars ago.



Dayroom

Here the old men sat,
hunched against the wall,
replaying the footage of their lives
in the half-light of the dayroom.

A beam of sunlight slants through the window,
the projection playing dead centre of the room
as though not only heat
but life itself was somewhere far away.

Something Beautiful - 3epkano

3epkano are a Dublin-based collective who compose sountracks “to silent, avant-garde, and temporary cinema”; they perform their scores live, and in venues that range from the main Electric Picnic stage to the National Gallery of Ireland. At home and abroad they are creating waves and deservedly.

Now and then over the years I have recommended music that can put you in the mood to write poetry; this does. The music is haunting, moving, simply beautiful. Creating soundscapes, dreamscapes you can move around in; spacey enough to find your own private place, moody enough to drown a little.

They started out in 2004 and have made three albums; the most recent released in Oct 2011; Hans the Reluctant Wolf Juggler – “What really marks this record out is the startling nature and force of musicianship.” Tony Clayton-Lea, Irish Times.

I have yet to catch them live, but I won't leave it much longer. Listen to the track below and you'll understand. Meanwhile the website is http://www.3epkanomusic.com/ go check it out.

Elemental

Owl eye
Night bead;

Flash from a branch
Plunge like fire;

Spring death
Live spark.

Rathmines Writers Workshop Reading

3.00pm this Saturday 24th Mar, as part of Rathmines Community Clubs and Soc's Day, writers from the Rathmines Writers Workshop will read from their own work. The event is taking place in the Town Hall, Rathmines and admission is free.

Also worth mentioning that there is an opportunity to play chess courtesy of Rathmines Chess Club.

So what else are you doing Saturday.

What is poetry

Reading through various answers to this question, and recognizing there are no forms that define poetry, I have opted for a basic statement:

Poetry is a composition of words corralled together in such a way as to magnify its impact beyond what would be achievable in a similar sized body of prose or in everyday parlance.

18 Everyday English Words That Come from Irish

[For St Patrick's Day,a list with a few surprises. http://www.accreditedonlinecolleges.com/blog/2012/18-everyday-english-words-that-come-from-irish/ Thanks to Emma Taylor.]

This poem came from viewing Rousseau's Sleeping Gypsy. The desert around is totally dead.Without scale, and alone in your position beneath the Milky Way, you maybe be as big or as small as you wish to be.

That said, the picture reminds me of the night I slept outdoors on Inis Mór.Many years ago (too many to admit to). In the middle of the night I woke up; there was a donkey's face within 6 inches of mine. Do you have any idea How big a donkey's head is?

The other memorable detail from that same weekend was a girl wading in the shallows playing with a dogfish. She was putting her palm under it and throwing it maybe 6 foot away, and it was coming back again and again like a dog chasing a ball. I wouldn't have thought it likely.

Dream


The desert has
no wings
to ruffle the air
nor insect
to displace a sand grain
nor throat
to crease the silence.

The desert is
a platform
on which I stand,
and am
as I dream:
atom or planet,
as colossal, as minute.

Rathmines Community Clubs n Soc's Day

A new departure in this part of town and maybe the first of many: Rathmines Community Clubs n Soc's Day, Saturday, 24th March from 12:00 until 17:00 in Rathmines Town Hall.

This is a free event which presents the community in the Rathmines area with an opportunity to meet members from a variety of organisations (clubs, societies, volunteering organisations and community groups)active in their locality, to get information on activities, events and membership.

So grab the opportunity to become more active, part of what's happening. The day is being organised by Cultural and Corporate Project Management students in Rathmines College.

See you there.
Michael

Swan Fashion Show in aid of Our Lady's Hospice and Care Services

A cause worth supporting. The Swan Fashion Show in aid of Our Lady’s Hospice and Care Services will take place at 8.45pm on Tuesday 27th March in the Swan Centre, Rathmines.

The show, which is being organised by Rathmines College in association with the Swan Centre, promises to be a very enjoyable night out with audience having the option of arriving in 20’s style clothing,(spot prizes for the best), and for a paltry €20 (VIP)having a few glasses of wine too.

Tickets cost €10 and €20 and can be bought at The Candy Bar in the Swan Centre from Fri 16th March. Doors for VIPs 8.20pm.

Email: rathminesccpm@gmail.com