A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

chasmcb

DON’T SAY I SAID

Next time you speak to you-know-who
I’ve got a message for him.
Tell him that I have lost a stone
Since the last time I saw him.
Tell him that I’ve got three new books
Coming out soon, but play it
Cool, make it sound spontaneous
Don’t say I said to say it.

He might ask if I’ve mentioned him.
Say I have once, in passing.
Memorize everything he says
And, no, it won’t be grassing
When you repeat his words to me –
It’s the only way to play it.
Tell him I’m toned and tanned and fine.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Say that serenity and grace
Have taken root inside me.
My top-note is frivolity
But beneath, dark passions guide me.
Tell him I’m radiant and replete
And add that everyday it
Seems I am harder to resist.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Sophie Hannah

Lady Chatterton

What If This Road

What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?

Sheenagh Pugh

donegal_man

Goody for Our Side and Your Side Too



Foreigners are people somewhere else,
Natives are people at home;
If the place you’re at
Is your habitat,
You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And tit leads into tat,
So the man who’s at home
When he stays in Rome
Is abroad when he’s where you’re at.

When we leave the limits of the land in which
Our birth certificates sat us,
It does not mean
Just a change of scene,
But also a change of status.
The Frenchman with his fetching beard,
The Scot with his kilt and sporran,
One moment he
May a native be,
And the next may find him foreign.

There’s many a difference quickly found
Between the different races,
But the only essential
Differential
Is living different places.
Yet such is the pride of prideful man,
From Austrians to Australians,
That wherever he is,
He regards as his,
And the natives there, as aliens.

Oh, I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,
The foreigner tells the native,
And we’ll work together for our common ends
Like a preposition and a dative.
If our common ends seem mostly mine,
Why not, you ignorant foreigner?
And the native replies
Contrariwise;
And hence, my dears, the coroner.

So mind your manners when a native, please,
And doubly when you visit
And between us all
A rapport may fall
Ecstatically exquisite.
One simple thought, if you have it pat,
Will eliminate the coroner:
You may be a native in your habitat,
But to foreigners you’re just a foreigner.



Ogden Nash

donegal_man

Blockage


I've got a lack of inspiration
I've got a look of consternation
No need for obfuscation
I've got writer's constipation
Suddenly, out of thin air
Comes the germ of an idea
And words flow everywhere
Help, I've got verbal diarrhoea


Patrick Winstanley

Swiper the fox

Has this one been done yet, last line is one of my favourite ever.


Death of an Irishwoman
by Michael Hartnett

Ignorant, in the sense
she ate monotonous food
and thought the world was flat,
and pagan, in the sense
she knew the things that moved
all night were neither dogs or cats
but hobgoblin and darkfaced men
she nevertheless had fierce pride.
But sentenced in the end
to eat thin diminishing porridge
in a stone-cold kitchen
she clenched her brittle hands
around a world
she could not understand.
I loved her from the day she died.

She was a summer dance at the crossroads.
She was a cardgame where a nose was broken.
She was a song that nobody sings.
She was a house ransacked by soldiers.
She was a language seldom spoken.
She was a child's purse, full of useless things.

donegal_man

Dylan Thomas At MacDonalds
(From An Idea By Chancery Stone)

The grease-spotted, salt-licked fries lie on the counter
by the boy with the lack-lustre hair,
Coal-black, Bible-black cola in a Welsh-pool-puddle
on the malachite, fake-Fablon-fabric of the counter,
Pooling without a care.

What forefathers have sired you,
lad of the forgotten green hills,
Loins of the lands of my fathers, bakelite lids
on brown-glazed carnival-glass bottles of pills.

Daffy the milkman whistles by,
humming a song of the perfume valleys,
Remembering star-lit,
chip-scented nights in Butlin’s chalets.


Why bouncing-boys, roving-remnants of the Rhonda,
why sit you in the ox-blood, cold-plastic chairs,
of this centre of the English ring?
Sling your hooks, llads, to Llewellyn’s realm,
To the ancient slate and rain-slacked stone of Burger King

Max Scratchman

marienbad

From A Farewell To English

This road is not new.
I am not a maker of new things.
I cannot hew
out of the vacuumcleaner minds
the sense of serving dead kings.
I am nothing new
I am not a lonely mouth
trying to chew
a niche for culture
in the clergy-cluttered south.
But I will not see
great men go down
who walked in rags
from town to town
finding English a necessary sin
the perfect language to sell pigs in.
I have made my choice
and leave with little weeping:
I have come with meagre voice
to court the language of my people

Michael Hartnett

Miprocin

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

donegal_man

Scorflufus


There are many diseases,
That strike people's kneeses,
Scorflufus! is one by name
It comes from the East
Packed in bladders of yeast
So the Chinese must take half the blame.

There's a case in the files
Of Sir Barrington-Pyles
While hunting a fox one day
Shot up in the air
And remained hanging there!
While the hairs on his socks turned grey!

Aye!Scorflufus had struck!
At man, beast, and duck.
And the knees of the world went Bong!
Some knees went Ping!
Other knees turned to string
From Balham to old Hong Kong.

Should you hold your life dear,
Then the remedy's clear,
If you're offered some yeast - don't eat it!
Turn the offer down flat-
Don your travelling hat-
Put an egg in your boot - and beat it!



Spike Milligan

HeadPig

I am drinnking ale today

Filled with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain —
Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.

matTNT

As close as you'll get to positive with this lady, although I'm not sure if inspiration is the poems main point or the sheer mediocrity of her life. The stand out point is certainly the wait for a spark.

Black Rook in Rainy Weather
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain-
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical
Yet politic, ignorant

Of whatever angel any choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur.
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance
Miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent.

Dave!

^ I really, really like that!

Swiper the fox

The Immortals

The boy racers
quicken on the Spiddal road
in Barbie Pink souped-ups
or roulette red Honda Civics.
With few fault lines or face lifts to rev up about
only an unwritten come hither of thrills
with screeching propositions and no full stops -
if you are willing to ride the ride.

Hop you in filly in my passion wagon.
Loud music and cigarette butts are shafted into space.
We'll speed hump it all the way baby
look at me, look at me
I'm young, I'm immortal, I'm free.

Gemmas and Emmas
stick insects or supermodels
regulars at 'Be a Diva'
for the perfect nails
eyebrows to slice bread with
and landing strips to match.

They wear short lives
they dream of never slowing down-pours
while half syllable after half syllable
jerk from their peak capped idols lips.
Their skinny lovers melt into seats
made for bigger men
Look at me, look at me
I'm young, I'm immortal, I'm free.
The boy racers never grow older or fatter.

On headstones made from Italian marble
they become 'our loving son Keith'
'our beloved son Jonathan,' etcetera etcetera.
On the Spiddal road
itching to pass out the light
they become Zeus, Eros, Vulcan, Somnus




Rita Ann Higgins

Roadtrippin

This one has probably been posted before but I can never read this one enough times. Great poem

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
(1927)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Miprocin

Despair

O’er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro’ the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking;
Damn’d daemons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,
Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Gold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn’d it all was dreaming—
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing—
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel’s whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.

HP Lovecraft

Swiper the fox

Again not sure if it's been posted here already but this is a fabulous poem, dedicated to the son of Lady Gregory who died in an air battle during WW1.


An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W.B Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

donegal_man

The Man from Iron Bark

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
'Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark.'

The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a 'tote', whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, 'Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark.'

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink his dexter eyelid shut,
'I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut.'
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
'I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark.'

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat;
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark -
No doubt it fairly took him in - the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
'You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! one hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark.'

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And 'Murder! Bloody murder!' yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said ''Twas all in fun'
Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone.'
'A joke!' he cried, 'By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark.'

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
'Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough.'
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson

chasmcb

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

Cherry Blossom Girl

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

donegal_man

Dust If You Must

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear, and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there,
With the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come round again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go - and go you must -
You, yourself, will make more dust.

Rose Milligan

Swiper the fox

Beautiful poem here, a tribute to his wife,

Scaffolding
by Seamus Heaney


Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;



Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.



And yet all this comes down when the job’s done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.



So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me



Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

Confident that we have built our wall.

marienbad

Brahms ,on the death of his great friend the painter Anselm Feuerbach set the poem Nanie by Friedrich Schiller to music. Nanie translates as funeral song or lamentation and here Schiller describes the inevitability of death where even Beauty and Bravery and all those ancient hero's must die.

Nanie

Also Beauty must perish! What gods and humanity conquers,
Moves not the armored breast of the Stygian Zeus.
Only once did love come to soften the Lord of the Shadows,
And at the threshold at last, sternly he took back his gift.
Nor can Aphrodite assuage the wounds of the youngster,
That in his delicate form the boar had savagely torn.
Nor can rescue the hero divine his undying mother,
When, at the Scaean gate now falling, his fate he fulfills.
But she ascends from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus,
And she raises a plaint here for her glorified son.
See now, the gods, they are weeping, the goddesses all weeping also,
That the beauteous must fade, that the most perfect one dies.
But to be a lament on the lips of the loved one is glorious,
For the prosaic goes toneless to Orcus below .


Here is the poem set to the music of Brahms- well worth a listen.
http://youtu.be/bILl0hgNI4g

Swiper the fox

Epitaph on a Tyrant
by W. H. Auden


Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

matTNT

Swiper the fox wrote: »

Epitaph on a Tyrant
by W. H. Auden


Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Very apt in the world current situation.

Here's my contribution:

Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Swiper the fox

Here's an extraordinary poem written by a man who knew he was about to die, whatever your political persuasion this is a lovely piece of writing.


'The Mother'
By Pádraig Pearse





I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge

My two strong sons that I have seen go out

To break their strength and die, they and a few,

In bloody protest for a glorious thing,

They shall be spoken of among their people,

The generations shall remember them,

And call them blessed;

But I will speak their names to my own heart

In the long nights;

The little names that were familiar once

Round my dead hearth.

Lord, thou art hard on mothers:

We suffer in their coming and their going;

And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary

Of the long sorrow--And yet I have my joy:

My sons were faithful, and they fought.

Literally haven't read any poetry properly at all since secondary school which is over 10 years ago. I bloody loved Yeats

Hope this hasn't been posted recently but this poem is as relevant now as it was then, the bit in bold is my favorite part.

The Second Coming

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Insecure Abnormality

Okay well as it appears that no one has decided to post here today I'll give it a shot. I'm assuming most people on here will have tried their hand at putting a pen to paper in some way shape or form over the years, this should appeal....

The late, great Ezra Pound wrote a quite long poem called 'Scriptor Ignotus' in an early book of poetry; here I have reproduced only an extract (The first stanza). The poem itself is amazing, however I don't know if you would all take the time to read it upon seeing it in it's entirety This is particularly lovely I think:

Ezra Pound - Scriptor Ignotus

WHEN I see thee as some poor song-bird
Battering its wings against this cage we call Today,
Then would I speak comfort unto thee,
From out the heights I dwell in, when
That great sense of power is upon me
And I see my greater soul-self bending
Sibylwise with that great forty-year epic
That you know of, yet unwrit

Thoughts on this? Or if someone is willing to take the time to read it in it's entirety - then thoughts on that?

All the best folks, have a nice day.

tomasocarthaigh

Ill post two... one of my own and one of a local writer...

First mine...



The Wrecking of Ballinamuck



The Village of Ballinamuck in Longford, the chapels spire can be seen which stands on the site of the mud walled church that was saved from the wrecking crew.

In the years before the Famine,
Greedy Lord Lorton, God damn the nyeuck*
For the love of money and hatred of man
Cleared the town of Ballinamuck…
Levelled, all bar six houses and church left standing
The latter only after a fight,
To the cold, the young and old,
Had but the sky for shelter for the night.

From the town of Boyle with the Police
For safe escort the wreckers came
Sleveens and other scum
Who knew neither God nor shame,
The rights of Landlords protected in Ireland
Refuting Westmeaths and Loritins** charge
The wrongs against the laws of God committed
Their sins both grave and large.

For God sees all, and Providence
Cannot be used as a defense
Those who twist the words of Christ
Know not God or any sense.
In the pursuit of Mammon
As they cast poor folk upon the road
These folk of fortune ill gotton
Further seeds of hatred they sowed.

Hatred it has a harvest,
As was being reaped upon that time,
A harvest that is bitter,
Leads but to another crime,
Nameless now the victims.
To most folk, but they have names here,
For God, and all decent folk,
Hold the names of the innocent dear.

The Widow Nerheny*** died of a broken heart,
It was the world, her little home, now gone,
She was but one of the common folk,
She was of those folk but one.
Her orphans to the charity of the world given,
And should such not be found,
Its the cruel rules of the world,
They would join her in the ground.

Folk feared for their lots and trembled,
No hope for themselves they saw,
There’s no justice for Irishmen in Ireland,
At least not under Britains law.
So men took on themselves revenge to administer
Each in his own way,
Horrible harvests of hatred pure
Were reaped in the wake of this wretched day.

With Courtenay, the soldiers came,
The locals they offered a pound,
To cover the scandal that had ensued,
If they’d lever their own homes to the ground.
Some, knowing resistance was futile,
Did as they were bid to do,
Took the shillings as offered,
Their actions for their lives they would rue.

Other men, such as Patrick Hogan,
Who to hold his home was set,
For on it he’d spent all that he had,
And built it with his own sweat,
But with an allmighty crash it came tumbling down,
Satisfied, the wreckers moved their sights
There was no God in Ballinamuck
On those cold dark autumn nights.

These cruel men of no hearts, moved on
A mother of six, a Widow, named Donnelly was next
Six young, some crippled, more diseased, one she swore
As is understandable, though a child she was, she was vexed.
From a pig shed they were turned out next,
And thrown under the open sky
“The heavens wept for them” a constable said,
Flurrying snowflakes about all did fly.

The men, stiff lipped, proud, silent stood
They shed not a tear, no emotion showed,
Not British stiff upper lip, but Irish,
Men staunch, men bitter, men unbowed.
To the exterminators they would give no triumph
As fond memories to themselves keep,
Though as I write I wonder how the wreckers,
With themselves at night could in peace sleep.

The chapel escaped, thanks to folks strong resistance,
Who with their lives, before it in protection stood.
In token possessions a piece of plaster from its walls,
And a bough from a tree take they could.
A church proud today on its site stands,
A testament to peoples resolve at that time,
That they could not level a house of God
When they done to the least of His folk so great a crime.

—oOo—

* Nyeuck – local dialect meaning a good for nothing. Hibero-English and Ulster Scots
** Westmeath and Loritin – two landed families who claimed Melbournes – the prime ministers – government did not protect landlords property rights in Ireland
*** Widow Nerheny – not sure of her name, see articles on the webpage below.
- See more at: http://www.writingsinrhyme.com/index.php/the-wrecking-of-ballinamuck/

and now one of a favorite local writer of mine... Anthony Sullivan...

One More Walk Through The Fields

For Paddy

One more walk through the fields
Where so ‘oft you would roam
Come nightfall , to neighbors
With their homes as your own
To speak of the seasons
Of the weeks and the days
No hour as a marker
For the parting of ways

And that sweet country song
Of the kettle’s slow boil
Its always welcome tune
Like the bell for each round
As all wrongs of the world
Where each taken in turn
To the bone , then re-built
And made right to the sound

Of laughter’s sure knowing
With wisdom in it’s wink
Of a kind only worn
‘Bout remembering eyes
Like the homage we pay
Come the hour of farewell
There speaks a voice seldom
An acquaintance of lies

The great irony of loss
Lies in where it’s light can fall
T’is sometimes slow , a hearts true shape
To shed life’s weathered skin
So ‘oft then while we travel
Those long miles of remembrance
A portraits true revealing
Will bitter -sweetly begin

And few would argue or deny
How your mem’ry wears this honor
A gentleman and a Lusmagh man
Always in ev’ry word and deed
Be kind and fair , when needed ; there
Be found as you would like to find
The legacy of your leaving
That you lived by this simple creed

So there by the kitchen table
We all circled that well-marked spot
Right by your chair , nearest the door
Where this world so ‘oft circled you
One room away , almost smiling
You slept your last hour ‘neath your roof
While we fought to steady our souls
For those moments hardly seemed true

Old friends and neighbors together
With no line at all between most
Share the weight of sudden silence
Your words again …would never fill
Yet ev’ry face harbored the trace
Of smiles born in your company
As all felt you there with us still

One last walk through the fields
One last ramble , then home
In the distance , a calling
Welcoming and well known
And a truth that outlasts
The passing of all days
Love knows of no marker
For the parting of ways.

- See more at: http://anthonysullivan.biz/

Swiper the fox

Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace



One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.





Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Cherry Blossom Girl

I came across this poem the other day and I think it's really beautiful and powerful, especially the last verse.

Roses and Rue

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love's song,
We are parted too long.

Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird's throat
With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey
Like an April day,
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed;

And your mouth, it would never smile
For a long, long while,
Then it rippled all over with laughter
Five minutes after.

You were always afraid of a shower,
Just like a flower:
I remember you started and ran
When the rain began.

I remember I never could catch you,
For no one could match you,
You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,
Little wings to your feet.

I remember your hair - did I tie it?
For it always ran riot -
Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:
These things are old.

I remember so well the room,
And the lilac bloom
That beat at the dripping pane
In the warm June rain;

And the colour of your gown,
It was amber-brown,
And two yellow satin bows
From your shoulders rose.

And the handkerchief of French lace
Which you held to your face -
Had a small tear left a stain?
Or was it the rain?

On your hand as it waved adieu
There were veins of blue;
In your voice as it said good-bye
Was a petulant cry,

'You have only wasted your life.'
(Ah, that was the knife!)
When I rushed through the garden gate
It was all too late.

Could we live it over again,
Were it worth the pain,
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead!

Well, if my heart must break,
Dear love, for your sake,
It will break in music, I know,
Poets' hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God's heaven and hell.

Oscar Wilde