Voice from 1889 - Robert Browning

English poet, Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)  reciting his poem 'How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix' on  April 7th, 1889. It was recorded on the Edison Cylinder.



There is a treasure trove of rarities at https://www.youtube.com/user/transformingArt/videos

Which is my face?

First published in Prairie Schooner, Volume 85, Number 4, Winter 2011

Mary Byrne

Old Mary Byrne posed for the camera
holding a photograph
of herself taken years ago.
 

Two faces:
the first a plate
embellished for display;
 

the second
a pattern of neolithic swirls
engraved into stone
 

—a life carved into its face—
two dangling earrings:
two broken chains.

 

Famine: Media Coverage

A Brief Note on an Imminent Famine.

Everyone here will starve:
each bone will be a stripe,
each hand a bowl,
each leg a stick.

Then there’ll be the gluttony
of cameras:
our threadbare skin
will be devoured,
our eyes exported
shining like pickles.

At One End of a Bench

 

At one end of a bench

an old man wearing Winter clothes

regards the fountains and Summer

through melt-water irises. 

This man needs my ear to be a conch

so that he can call to the past down these auditory canals.

And when he calls, his wife and sons will resurrect,

return, reverse like filings into a family. 

It is mid-morning in Stephen's Green;

the usual sounds: clacking fowl and fountain symphonies,

outside the thrash of traffic and voices. 

In a moment:

two strangers on a bench are traveling backwards to Mayo;

elsewhere a beggar has recreated himself in a bank window

and somewhere, busy in a kitchen, a woman is conversing

though the voice that answers has not been heard for years.

The Old Men

 The breed of old men I’m remembering is gone now. I remember them out from the county home, on walks into town or sitting on the low stone wall in summer sunshine. They were countrymen, wore well battered suits and flat caps, leaned on walking sticks and did or didn’t say hello. Some, of course, were very friendly, and some carried bags of sweets. The women were less visible usually; they tended to stay closer to the old building.

I didn’t realise it then but a lot of them had sad stories, and the silent ones had good reason. Some were almost dumped there, for others the Co. Home was a salvation. For many, the old home was still too close to its workhouse history to  be a comfort, and maybe some recognized in the old double ditch, 400 yards on the road, the boreen that led to the workhouse cemetery.

Whatever, they were very much part of the grain of my Roscommon childhood. 

Who Has Seen The Old Men

Who has seen the old men

getting their suits

tanned to their backs? 

Ghost of a check,

button holes frayed,

crew cut threads. 

Years worn on face

and on cloth;

the cloth becomes the face. 

And when the Summer colours

come clashing

on the young,  

who will see

the old men

in their concrete cloth?

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.

 

The Irish Curse

The Irish language is famous, from bardic times, for its curses; a poor host  got a verbal flaying. Likewise praise can be most eloquent an elaborate.  Declarations of love: off the scale.

James Stephens gives a fine example in  the following poem of a blood-curdling curse.

The Glass of Beer

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer:
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will ever see
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!

If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;
 But she with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

Dylan Thomas Reading "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London "

What an amazing resource the Poetry Archive is! Here Dylan Thomas introduces his poetry in that high-blown way that was the fashion. At the age of 16 he declared himself to be exceptional. He was, but I wonder how many listeners threw their eyes up to heaven, and turned the dial. In truth, listening to many of today's poets, I wonder how many still do.

 

  http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7091#

The Day Room

 

This is where the old men sit,

sacks of coal against a wall;

time to dream

and all their dreams defunct.

A slant of sunlight through the window

like a beam from a projector,

as though, not only heat,

but life itself is somewhere else.

An Interview with Harold Bloom

Vincent Woods interviewing Harold Bloom for RTE's Arts Tonight. Absorbing listening; Bloom's encyclopedic knowledge of literature is jaw-dropping.

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A10161915%3A0%3A%3A

Flesh and Stone

This painting by Andrea Mantegna was reproduced in our family Bible. As a boy, I used to look at it and marvel. I still marvel.

    It is monumental yet intimate, sculpted stone yet flesh, cold and warm simultaneously. The Lamentation of Christ dates from  about 1480. I imagine Mantegna must have been satisfied with the painting.

    It reminds me of an argument I had, in which I maintained the mental process for artist and poet is very similar. Both are striving for a striking composition, new angle, a different perspective; something that make the whole greater than its parts. 

    This image achieves it from the torn holes in Christ’s feet to the expression on His face, dignity and torture.

Life is short

The River Took Me was first published in the Prairie Schooner, Irish Number, December 2011.

 

The River Took Me 

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.

Pub Yap

First published in THE SHOp Poetry Magazine:

Mrs Clancy

Mrs Clancy pulling a pint,
asking John Quinn about Kate Nealon’s
accident the other evening outside Lawlor’s
when Tadhg Foley comes in,
says, “How’s Tadhg. A pint Tadhg?”
“Hello Mrs Clancy”

“Here y’are John.” She takes the silver.
“She had to leave the bike in Mulhall’s,”
“William Featherstone’s gone over, Missus.”
“Not the first time, Tadhg” she says.
“No, nor the last either” says Tadhg
 with a bit of a chuckle.

“Mike Deegan has the rest of it in anyway”
says John. “And how’s Breege?” she asks;
“A lot better than yesterday, but she’ll hardly be right.”
“I suppose not.” says Mrs Clancy
climbing up on her stool at the end of the bar,
“I suppose Maeve will have to do.”

“Wasn’t Maggie Deegan related to the Nealon’s?”
quizs Tadhg. “ She was, and Brennans in Clooncraff.”
Terry Watchorne comes in. “How’s Terry.
A pint Terry?” Climbing off the stool,
over to the tap, lifting her arm, she says
“Wasn’t that awful about Kate Nealon.”

Billy Collins Makes You Want to Write a Poem

This TED talk by Billy Collins is essential viewing for poets who are drying up, school-goers who need to be convinced that poetry means anything and anyone who has ever said they don't like poetry. A very entertaining 15 mins.

Jesus The Aviator

Jesus the fighter pilot

has served in Iraq and Afghanistan:

6,000 flight hours; 1,800 combat hours. 

Described as cool-headed, aggressive;

when asked for his opinion, he says

he backs America all the way. 

The much decorated F-18 pilot claims

he’s come a long way, his teachings are smarter;

“follow the dollar gospel” he says,

  “In God We Trust”.