A Poor Man Offers Unlimited Treasure

It’s a paltry thing that sparkler on your finger,

when, on a sunny morning, I will present you

with ten miles of dazzling lake almost to the door.

Or an emerald, when my house is sitting at the bottom

of blazing green fields, and the same all the way to the sea,

two counties to the west, three to the east.

Or amethyst, when the boreen is crowded with foxgloves

ringing their bells for the attention of bumble bees who’ll be losing

their heads in nectar from May to September.

Or rubies, when the hedges are brimming with myriad constellations

of fuchsia; even the ash, high on the hill, outshines them with its harvest

of late evening sun gathered in sprays of blood-bright berries.

And that gold bangle on your wrist, how dull it will look beside the daffodils

under the beech trees not a hundred yards from my house, or June’s irises

with blooms like laughter among the flaggers opposite Scanlon’s old shed.

Over by the privet hedge, you’ll have all the pearls you could wish for

come the end of January; snowdrops, promising the year’s beauty,

will be yours every January, if only you’d come live in my cottage.

Married Couple in the Pandemic

I noticed our fingers: grown old,

bones and knuckles;

my face sort of similar, hers is fuller.

We got so used to our own ways,

hard to live to someone else’s tune;

old habits are comfortable.

The house is empty, there’s no company;

I make noise to hear noise,

talk out loud a lot.

Her fingers on the perspex, that small distance

brought the whole distance home;

I would have liked to touch them.

The Saintliness of Feichín

A sea mist clinging to the rocks, dunes, stone huts;

vague dawn light; occasional screechings of sea-birds;

insidious dampness slithering between the stones,

under doors, between blankets and bodies; bodies huddling

closer; breaths’ clouds condensing on faces hard by.

Suddenly the shriek of a man; again and again,

each on the lightning slap of a tong on flesh,

so all, now awake in their huts, are bolt upright, listening,

and suffering the strokes of flails embedded with thorns;

marvelling at the saintliness of Feichín.

After a long agonising period the lashings cease;

the waves are again lapping on the shore, the gulls are screaming;

from Feichín’s hut come quiet moans and latin supplications:

“in manus Tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum”; it is Good Friday,

in mid-afternoon the skies will darken and the temple veil shall be rent.

At mid-morning, he emerges; shock-eyed scare-crow

with shroud covering his body, a scream of blood;

the brothers kneel; thanks is given to God; Feichín is safe.

Already wild flowers are colouring the fields, soon the swallows will come

and bees will make honey to their glorious chant.

How Feichín Got His Other Name, Moéca (Backslider).

Feichín stumped out of Clonmacnoise fuming,

the argument a burst blister in his head.

That cur, Ciarán, had, for the last time, demeaned him;

may his feet blacken with gangrene, may a nest of ulcers

prevent wine ever passing his lips again.

All day Feichín had tended the oxen while it poured and hailed

and him without the merest fortification of a drink.

He made ribbons of his arms climbing through a hedge of briars,

stumbled up to his neck into a stand of nettles, fell through the bridge

over Abha Bán where the rotten timbers ripped open his leg.

Lumbering on now, he growled at shadows, sent the stones of the road

into the bushes with delicious kicks he imagined on Ciarán’s arse;

but suddenly, breaking his reverie, the detested voice was ordering him back.

He grumbled, fought with it, cursed God, but having no choice,

walked backward so as not to look that accursed saint in the face.

Feichín's Bliss on Omey

In the play of sunlight and ripples,

that dance of the lake’s finery,

Feichín sees the splendour of Heaven

and sends his thanks to the Lord.

In the fish, silver treasure of the ocean,

the plenty that graces his table,

Feichín enjoys their steam-play with his nose

and sends his thanks to the Lord.

In the carpet of brightly coloured flowers,

bee-droning machair near the shore,

Feichín antcipates the sweetness of honey

and sends his thanks to the Lord.

In the uninhibited song of the lark,

sky-high notes from among the dunes,

Feichín feels the joy of God’s presence

and sends his thanks to the Lord.

From a Child's Window

The child is at the window; he is there every evening

at this time, as the clouds of the world are catching fire. He knows

the fields behind his house: the hay-shed with the tunnels through the bales,

the wrecked car under the elders where some of the hens are laying,

the field with the maze of pathways through the furze.

Beyond that, the railway line where the lesser known world begins.

He has been there, where the fields are wide and there are no houses,

to the water hole where the small fish dart from weed cover to weed cover;

that’s where the prairie begins, where cowboys travel alone.

To the left, the railway line cuts straight to the white gates;

he has seen the gates; beyond them trains travel days, weeks

across parched deserts, open steppes, past wadis, oases. The passengers

seldom look: tuxedoed gentlemen with glinting teeth are tipping whiskeys

lit by a million lights in crystal glasses to feather-boa’d women

whose champagne drinks sparkle back from the tips of their slender arms.

He knows the station is to the right, and there’s the bridge he loves to stand on

when the four o’clock is coming through. The excitement as the engine appears,

slowing to the platform, then starts up, and the carriage roofs passing beneath him,

he loves that; then the last of it, the tail slithering away from the station.

Where to? He does not know. It goes into a place he has no thoughts on;

the evening train into the hours he sleeps through; that is where darkness is.

Giorria

Noiméad ar a shuaimhneas,

ina thiarnas ciúin, folamh.

Go tobann ag ropadh tríd an scrobarnach

mar a bhí mé í láthair.

Draíocht an nóiméid,

é ina shuí ina áit féin,

imníoch, ach an méid atá nádúrtha dó

í dtús Aibreáin, é ar faire ar chnocán féarmhar.

Agus draíocht a éalú,

an aclaíocht sin agus an diongbháilteas;

treo áirithe aige, an cinneadh agus an bhogadh

déanta ar an bpointe.

Transl.

Hare

One moment at ease,
in his quiet empty dominion.
Suddenly flashing through the undergrowth
because I am present.

The magic of the moment,
him sitting in his own place,
anxious, but the amount that is natural to him
at the beginning of April, him on the lookout on a grassy hillock.

And the magic of his escape,
the agility and the single-mindedness;
a particular direction, the decision and the movement
made in an instant.

I love You

This is an updated version of a poem I posted about two years ago.

I love you

The chives’ purple heads standing on their bottle-green stalks

were June’s bright soldiers above the dun-coloured sandstone;

beyond them, on the hillside opposite, the soft pile forestry

was our wealth, especially in the rich glow of evening sun.

I moved closer to you, held out my hand to find yours already there.

to be links in this chain of beauty; and then I said, ‘I love you.’

It was not just the moment, but the magnificence we were part of;

happiness was bubbling,  the words came like breaking into a song.

Minnows

Compass needles

in current,

still

as thought.

Flint arrows,

they darted linear,

abrupt angles sparked

and quenched

Euclidian

in execution.

Feichín's Penance

January, frigid dawn. Rain

forged in heaven's graphite-dark belly

flaying the island.  

Fifteen strides out from the shore,

Feichín’s head, gull on the water,

chanting to the glory of God.

Waves crash over, tearing hair,

weed on the rocks, and eyes,

cockle-shells bleached staring.

Charlie Brown's Eyes

This isn't the first version of this poem that I've posted, probably not the last. Rewrite follows rewrite until, like evolution, the series of mutations leads to  a completely new poem. And for that reason, I've always thought it important that all rewrites are kept.

Charlie Brown's Eyes

On the Lower Kimmage Road

I stopped to watch Charlie Brown's eyes

winking in puddles;

an iodine-stained filth was polluting the city.

In the pub a burnt-out match

and a rib of hair snagged my attention,

my convexed eyes;

I drank more than intended.

A carrier bag gulped on the broken white line

and I moved on. In the hallway,

removing my overcoat, I counted sixteen balusters,

re-buttoned my overcoat and walked out.

Gliondar

Ag siúil ar gconair choille trathnóna geimhridh,
caonach fíorglas mór thimpeall: ar stocaí na gcrainn,
ar na carraigeacha, sna locháin uisce.

An cosán go léir mar srútháin glas os mo chomhair;
sámh ar mo shúile, ciúin i mo chluasa, bog ar bhoinn mo chosa.
Anseo is ansiúd, paistí geal buíglas le solas ghréine

– meangaidh gáire ar aghaidh an nádúir –
iad ag rith aerach mar coileáin a bhí ann
agus mise líonta leis an gliondar a thagann leis an radharc sin.

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.

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. 

The Discovery

Many years after he had died,

I found the smell of my father’s office in his briefcase.

Pipe-smoke, cigarettes, pencil-parings, paper;

not just his office but part of himself
still in existence after all this time.

When I was small I would ask to sit there, beside him,

in the heat, the smoke, that mixture of smells. 

He would say if you’re quiet; I would promise

until, minutes later, I talked too much or stirred too much

and, well, I was ejected.

I opened the case to an assemblage of atoms 

unique to my childhood,to the sixties even, 
put there by my father and now dissipating 
like an art treasure in the sunlight,

the last of my father turning to nothing.