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A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away
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Don't Quit.
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will.
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill.
When the funds are low & the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won, has he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out.
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit.
It's when things seem worst, that you must not quit.0 -
Infirmity
Theodore Roethke
In purest song one plays the constant fool
As changes shimmer in the inner eye.
I stare and stare into a deepening pool
And tell myself my image cannot die.
I love myself: that’s my one constancy.
Oh, to be something else, yet still to be!
Sweet Christ, rejoice in my infirmity;
There’s little left I care to call my own.
Today they drained the fluid from a knee
And pumped a shoulder full of cortisone;
Thus I conform to my divinity
By dying inward, like an aging tree.
The instant ages on the living eye;
Light on its rounds, a pure extreme of light
Breaks on me as my meager flesh breaks down—
The soul delights in that extremity.
Blessed the meek; they shall inherit wrath;
I’m son and father of my only death.
A mind too active is no mind at all;
The deep eye sees the shimmer on the stone;
The eternal seeks, and finds, the temporal,
The change from dark to light of the slow moon,
Dead to myself, and all I hold most dear,
I move beyond the reach of wind and fire.
Deep in the greens of summer sing the lives
I’ve come to love. A vireo whets its bill.
The great day balances upon the leaves;
My ears still hear the bird when all is still;
My soul is still my soul, and still the Son,
And knowing this, I am not yet undone.
Things without hands take hands: there is no choice,—
Eternity’s not easily come by.
When opposites come suddenly in place,
I teach my eyes to hear, my ears to see
How body from spirit slowly does unwind
Until we are pure spirit at the end.0 -
The most farcical part of the attempted shut down of Banagher fair, was when John Boy Dolan got cautioned for selling HENS… when the town is awash with drugs!Its Revenue men and the Guardaí
Laid siege to Banagher town
To visitors it must have seemed
Something major was going down…
It must be a drug bust some thought
Love Hate comes to Banagher town
But, no, they came for the Horse Fair, you see,
Some saps said shut it down.
They dipped cars for green diesel
To see were folk conning Revenue of a few bob
They looked mighty hard and scary
But they were only doing their job.
They turned away visitors to the fair,
Horse people are not wanted here, being Irish in their own land
But if your French and German with money and no horses
There was no problem, I understand…
But the highlight of the operation:
It was spectacular, I dont deny!
They cautioned a man for selling HENS!
You wouldn’t see it on CSI!
Welcome to gangland Banagher
Of Offaly its the wild west
Hen dealing mafianos
Taken down by the Gardaí’s best.
Isn’t that why I pay my taxes
To pay the wages of these great hard men
To ignore the harmless drug dealers
But god help you if you sell a horse or hen!
More posts from the site:
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Advent by Patrick Kavanagh
We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.0 -
What is it about the lines
'We have tested and tasted too much, lover'
'And Christ comes with a January flower'
That gets me every time?0 -
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A Childhood Christmas
One side of the potato‑pits was white with frost—
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!
And when we put our ears to the paling‑post
The music that came out was magical.
The light between the ricks of hay and straw
Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree
With its December‑glinting fruit we saw —
O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me
To eat the knowledge that grew in clay
And death the germ within it! Now and then
I can remember something of the gay
Garden that was childhood’s. Again
The tracks of cattle to a drinking‑place,
A green stone lying sideways in a ditch
Or any common sight the transfigured face
Of a beauty that the world did not touch.
My father played the melodeon
Outside at our gate;
There were stars in the morning east
And they danced to his music.
Across the wild bogs his melodeon called
To Lennons and Callans.
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.
Outside the cow‑house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable‑lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.
A water‑hen screeched in the bog,
Mass‑going feet
Crunched the wafer‑ice on the pot‑holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.
My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.
Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy’s hanging hill,
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon — The Three Wise Kings.
An old man passing said:
“Can’t he make it talk” —
The melodeon. I hid in the doorway
And tightened the belt of my box‑pleated coat.
I nicked six nicks on the door’post
With my penknife’s big blade—
There was a little one for cutting tobacco,
And I was six Christmases of age.
My father played the melodeon,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.
Note : 'whin' = ‘gorse’ or ‘furze’.
Patrick Kavanagh
(1904 – 1967)0 -
Just to set off our Christmas Season 2014
In the Bleak Mid-Winter, by Christina Georgina RossettiIn the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, Whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, Whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.0 -
I probably have posted this before ,but it is so beautiful it always bears repeating
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
C.P Cavafy0 -
Then I confess
Here on my knee before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor but honest; so's my love.
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intensible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still...
....from The Love Sonnets of William Shakespeare
I think this is Helena's monologue from All's Well That Ends Well , not that it matters too much . Just that it would be a LGBT anthem if it was from the sonnets.0 -
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Great poem anyway , thanks for posting , if I came across as pedantic I didn't intend it- apologies .0
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I didn't take your reply as pedantic, marienbad ...I appreciate your insights
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"L" Sonnet from Fatal Interview by Edna St Vincent Millay
The heart once broken is a heart no more,
And is absolved from all a heart must be;
All that it signed or chartered heretofore
Is cancelled now, the bankrupt heart is free;
So much of duty as you may require
Of shards and dust, this and no more of pain,
This and no more of hope, remorse, desire,
The heart once broken need support again.
How simple 'tis, and what a little sound
It makes in breaking, let the world attest:
It struggles, and it fails; the world goes round,
And the moon follows it. Heart in my breast,
'Tis half a year now since you broke in two;
The world's forgotten well; if the world knew.0 -
A Visit From St NicholasTwas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”Clement Clarke Moore0 -
For the time of year
Wartime Christmas
Led by a star, a golden star,
The youngest star, an olden star,
Here the kings and the shepherds are,
Akneeling on the ground.
What did they come to the inn to see?
God in the Highest, and this is He,
A baby asleep on His mother’s knee
And with her kisses crowned. Now is the earth a dreary place,
A troubled place, a weary place.
Peace has hidden her lovely face
And turned in tears away.
Yet the sun, through the war-cloud, sees
Babies asleep on their mother’s knees.
While there are love and home—and these—
There shall be Christmas Day.
Joyce Kilmer ( 1886-1918)0 -
'Twas the night before Christmas,
when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
Happy Christmas Everyone,
kerry4sam0 -
Christmas Time
Christmas Time is finally here,
It only comes but once a year.
And it's a time to spread good cheer,
To those we love and hold so dear.
Christmas Time is a time of glee,
A time when peace and love run free.
A time for those like you and me,
To sit beneath the Christmas Tree.
Christmas Time is a time of joy,
A time to sit back and enjoy.
The smile on each girl and boy,
As they play with a Christmas Toy.
Christmas Time is a time to share,
The passing of another year.
Birth of Jesus, a joyful prayer,
To show loved ones how much we care.
Christmas Time is a time for song,
A time for us to get along.
To make us feel Lord Jesus strong,
Forgive all those who did us wrong.
Christmas Time is a time to pray,
Put love and kindness on display.
Show compassion along the way,
Christmas Time should be everyday
Ronald Doe
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The Old Vicarage, Grantchester by Rupert Brooke
Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room;
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink;
And down the borders, well I know,
The poppy and the pansy blow...
Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
Beside the river make for you
A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
Deeply above; and green and deep
The stream mysterious glides beneath,
Green as a dream and deep as death.
-- Oh, damn! I know it! and I know
How the May fields all golden show,
And when the day is young and sweet,
Gild gloriously the bare feet
That run to bathe...
Du lieber Gott!
Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot,
And there the shadowed waters fresh
Lean up to embrace the naked flesh.
Temperamentvoll German Jews
Drink beer around; -- and there the dews
Are soft beneath a morn of gold.
Here tulips bloom as they are told;
Unkempt about those hedges blows
An English unofficial rose;
And there the unregulated sun
Slopes down to rest when day is done,
And wakes a vague unpunctual star,
A slippered Hesper; and there are
Meads towards Haslingfield and Coton
Where das Betreten's not verboten.
eithe genoimen...would I were
In Grantchester, in Grantchester! --
Some, it may be, can get in touch
With Nature there, or Earth, or such.
And clever modern men have seen
A Faun a-peeping through the green,
And felt the Classics were not dead,
To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head,
Or hear the Goat-foot piping low:...
But these are things I do not know.
I only know that you may lie
Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester...
Still in the dawnlit waters cool
His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,
And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,
Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx.
Dan Chaucer hears his river still
Chatter beneath a phantom mill.
Tennyson notes, with studious eye,
How Cambridge waters hurry by...
And in that garden, black and white,
Creep whispers through the grass all night;
And spectral dance, before the dawn,
A hundred Vicars down the lawn;
Curates, long dust, will come and go
On lissom, clerical, printless toe;
And oft between the boughs is seen
The sly shade of a Rural Dean...
Till, at a shiver in the skies,
Vanishing with Satanic cries,
The prim ecclesiastic rout
Leaves but a startled sleeper-out,
Grey heavens, the first bird's drowsy calls,
The falling house that never falls.
God! I will pack, and take a train,
And get me to England once again!
For England's the one land, I know,
Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
The shire for Men who Understand;
And of THAT district I prefer
The lovely hamlet Grantchester.
For Cambridge people rarely smile,
Being urban, squat, and packed with guile;
And Royston men in the far South
Are black and fierce and strange of mouth;
At Over they fling oaths at one,
And worse than oaths at Trumpington,
And Ditton girls are mean and dirty,
And there's none in Harston under thirty,
And folks in Shelford and those parts
Have twisted lips and twisted hearts,
And Barton men make Cockney rhymes,
And Coton's full of nameless crimes,
And things are done you'd not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve.
Strong men have run for miles and miles,
When one from Cherry Hinton smiles;
Strong men have blanched, and shot their wives,
Rather than send them to St. Ives;
Strong men have cried like babes, bydam,
To hear what happened at Babraham.
But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!
There's peace and holy quiet there,
Great clouds along pacific skies,
And men and women with straight eyes,
Lithe children lovelier than a dream,
A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,
And little kindly winds that creep
Round twilight corners, half asleep.
In Grantchester their skins are white;
They bathe by day, they bathe by night;
The women there do all they ought;
The men observe the Rules of Thought.
They love the Good; they worship Truth;
They laugh uproariously in youth;
(And when they get to feeling old,
They up and shoot themselves, I'm told)...
Ah God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grantchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell, and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain?... oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?0 -
'Slough' by John Betjeman
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.0 -
Kung Fu International - John Cooper Clarke
Outside the take-away, Saturday night
a bald adolescent, asks me out for a fight
He was no bigger than a two-penny fart
he was a deft exponent of the martial art
He gave me three warnings:
Trod on me toes, stuck his fingers in my eyes
and kicked me in the nose
A rabbit punch made me eyes explode
My head went dead, I fell in the road
I pleaded for mercy
I wriggled on the ground
he kicked me in the balls
and said something profound
Gave my face the millimetre tread
Stole me chop suey and left me for dead
Through rivers of blood and splintered bones
I crawled half a mile to the public telephone
pulled the corpse out the call box, held back the bile
and with a broken index finger, I proceeded to dial
I couldn’t get an ambulance
the phone was screwed
The receiver fell in half
it had been kung fu’d
A black belt karate cop opened up the door
demanding information about the stiff on the floor
he looked like an extra from Yang Shang Po
he said “What’s all this then
ah so, ah so, ah so.”
he wore a bamboo mask
he was gen’ned on zen
He finished his devotions and he beat me up again
Thanks to that embryonic Bruce Lee
I’m a shadow of the person that I used to be
I can’t go back to Salford
the cops have got me marked
Enter the Dragon
Exit Johnny Clarke0 -
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I liked this one in the Irish Times today
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I LOVED A PAPISH GIRL
I was born and bred in Sandy Row a loyal orange Prod.
A follower of King William that noble man of God,
My motto no surrender my fleg the Union Jack
And every year I'd proudly walk to Finaghy and back.
A loyal son of Ulster a true blue that was me
Prepared to fight prepared to die for faith and liberty.
As well as that a Linfield man far back as I can mind
I had no time for Catholics or people of that kinds.
But then one night in Bangor I met wee Rosie Brown,
From the moment I set eyes on her my heart went up and down
And when I thought she fancied me my heart was all a buzz
I clean forgot to ask her what her religion was.
I never slept a wink that night I just laid there in bed,
I thought about wee Rosie and all the things we'd said
I know I should have asked before I made a date
Before I fell in love with her but by then it was too late
When next we met I told her "I'm a Prod and staunch and true"
She said "I'm a Catholic and I'm just as staunch as you."
The words were harsh and bitter then suddenly like this
The centuries of hatred were forgotten in one kiss.
That night I dreamt about her a strange confusing dream
I dreamt we both were singing " The Wearin of the Green"
And as we walked to Finaghy full of harmony and hope
Who was there to greet us but his Holiness the Pope.
When I awoke I new that dream was even more than true
The future we were heading for would be confusing too.
Indeed when I thought about it, it was all to clear
That was to be the understatement of the year.
I knew our love could bring us little but trouble and distress
But nothing in this world could make me love my Rosie less.
I saved a bit of money as quickly as I could
I asked her if she'd marry me and by God she said she would.
Then the trouble really started her folks were flaming mad
And when mine heard about it sure they were twice as bad,
Her father said that from that day he'd hang his head in shame
And by a strange coincidence my oul lad said the same.
My mother cried her eyes out and said I'd rue the day
I'd let a Papish hussy steal my royal heart away.
And Rose's mother said when she'd recovered from the blow
She'd rather see the Divil than a man from Sandy Row.
In deference to Rosie we were married in her church
But my clergyman was there as well; he didn't leave me in the lurch.
The Priest was awfully nice to me he made me feel at home
I think he pitied both of us for our families wouldn't come.
The house we went to live in had nothing but four walls,
It was far away from Sandy Row and farther from the Falls.
And that's the way we wanted it for both of us new well
That back among the ones we knew our lives would just be hell.
But life out there for Rosie was lonely I knew well
And of course we had our wee religious differences too,
When Friday came along and Rosie gave me fish
I looked at it and then at her and said "That's not my dish."
I mind well what she answered though she never said it twice
"To ate no meat on Friday is a poor wee sacrifice
To make for Christ who died one Friday long ago."
But anyway I ate the fish and it wasn't bad you know.
Then Sunday came and I lay on and she got up for Mass.
Then Rosie turned to me and said " Will you shift your lazy ass
You've got a Church to go to and that's where you should be
So up you get this minute you'll go part of the road with me."
We left the house together but we parted down the line,
She went off to her Church and I went off to mine
But all through out the service although we were apart
I felt I was worshiping with Rosie in my heart.
The weeks and months went quickly by and then there comes the day
That Rosie up and tells me that a child is on the way.
Then from that day my life becomes a wondrous thing
Like a lovely flower unfolding its petals in the spring.
We wrote and told our families for they never came to call
And we thought this news would heal the breach and so it did an all.
My Mother and then Rosies come to visit us in turn
And I marveled at the power of a wee child yet unborn.
Och but I was awful disillusioned when I found out why they came
It wasn't just to heal the breach or make it up again,
Rosie's Mother had come to say the child would be RC
And mine had come to say it would be a Protestant like me.
The rows before the wedding were surely meek and mild
Compared to all the rumpus that was ris about the child,
From both sides of the family insults and threats were hurled
O what a desperate way to welcome a wee angel to this world.
The child must be a Catholic no the child must be a Prod,
But the last and powerful voice I heard was the mighty voice of God
When to is awful wisdom I had to hang my head
When Rosies time had come at last the child was born but dead.
That night I sat by Rosies bed and just before the dawn
I kissed her as she left me to join our angel son.
This orange heart was broken within these four bare walls
Where the hells the Shankill and where the hells the Falls.
In all the years that's past since then years of grief and pain
I'd give my life and even more just to see her face again.
But the loneliness is near over now I'll see her soon I know
For the Doctor told me yesterday that I haven't long to go.
And when I go up yonder they'll let me in I hope
And when the ask me who I'm for King Billy or the Pope,
I'm going to take no chances I'll answer loud and clear
I'm just a loyal Protestant who loved, a Papish girl.
But one way or another I think they'll let me through
And Rosie will be waiting there, and our wee angel too
Then a little child will lead them the Papisher and the Prod
Up the golden steps of Heaven into the house of God.0 -
I rarely read the poems on here if they're too long but I read that one there and it is absolutely incredible. never seen or heard that before. Not sure if I should thank you or not because I won't forget it for a long time.
To everybody like me who can't be bothered with the long ones, read the last poem, it's worth it.
Just watched Conal Gallen perform it on youtube, very good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7PzNnJWaEs0 -
Swiper the fox wrote: »I rarely read the poems on here if they're too long but I read that one there and it is absolutely incredible. never seen or heard that before. Not sure if I should thank you or not because I won't forget it for a long time.
To everybody like me who can't be bothered with the long ones, read the last poem, it's worth it.
Just watched Conal Gallen perform it on youtube, very good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7PzNnJWaEs
THANKS FOR THE CONAL GALLEN VIDEO WAS VERY GOOD TO HERE THAT RECITED0 -
In honour of the day that's in it
Address To The Haggis
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis
Robert Burns0 -
Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin
'Erected to the memory of Mrs. Dermot O'Brien'
O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water, preferably, so stilly
Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother
Commemorate me thus beautifully
Where by a lock niagarously roars
The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence
Of mid-July. No one will speak in prose
Who finds his way to these Parnassian islands.
A swan goes by head low with many apologies,
Fantastic light looks through the eyes of bridges -
And look! a barge comes bringing from Athy
And other far-flung towns mythologies.
O commemorate me with no hero-courageous
Tomb - just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by.
Patrick Kavanagh0 -
Loving Kavanagh lately...
The Hospital
A year ago I fell in love with the functional ward
Of a chest hospital: square cubicles in a row
Plain concrete, wash basins - an art lover's woe,
Not counting how the fellow in the next bed snored.
But nothing whatever is by love debarred,
The common and banal her heat can know.
The corridor led to a stairway and below
Was the inexhaustible adventure of a gravelled yard.
This is what love does to things: the Rialto Bridge,
The main gate that was bent by a heavy lorry,
The seat at the back of a shed that was a suntrap.
Naming these things is the love-act and its pledge;
For we must record love's mystery without claptrap,
Snatch out of time the passionate transitory.
-Patrick Kavanagh0 -
Niall Keane wrote: »Kung Fu International - John Cooper Clarke
Outside the take-away, Saturday night
a bald adolescent, asks me out for a fight
He was no bigger than a two-penny fart
he was a deft exponent of the martial art
He gave me three warnings:
Trod on me toes, stuck his fingers in my eyes
and kicked me in the nose
A rabbit punch made me eyes explode
My head went dead, I fell in the road
I pleaded for mercy
I wriggled on the ground
he kicked me in the balls
and said something profound
Gave my face the millimetre tread
Stole me chop suey and left me for dead
Through rivers of blood and splintered bones
I crawled half a mile to the public telephone
pulled the corpse out the call box, held back the bile
and with a broken index finger, I proceeded to dial
I couldn’t get an ambulance
the phone was screwed
The receiver fell in half
it had been kung fu’d
A black belt karate cop opened up the door
demanding information about the stiff on the floor
he looked like an extra from Yang Shang Po
he said “What’s all this then
ah so, ah so, ah so.”
he wore a bamboo mask
he was gen’ned on zen
He finished his devotions and he beat me up again
Thanks to that embryonic Bruce Lee
I’m a shadow of the person that I used to be
I can’t go back to Salford
the cops have got me marked
Enter the Dragon
Exit Johnny Clarke
I like it.0 -
Canal Bank Walk
by Patrick Kavanagh
Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.
Hope you enjoy reading it as I do,
kerry4sam0 -
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Kindness (by Naomi Shihab Nye)
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.0
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