A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

Harry Angstrom

Poetry Day Ireland 2017

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

- WB Yeats

B00!

A Man In His Life

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.

-Yehuda Amichai

Professor Moriarty

The Door

Miroslav Holub

Go and open the door.
Maybe outside there’s
a tree, or a wood,
a garden,
or a magic city.

Go and open the door.
Maybe a dog’s rummaging.
Maybe you’ll see a face,
or an eye,
or the picture
of a picture.

Go and open the door.
If there’s a fog
it will clear.

Go and open the door.
Even if there’s only
the darkness ticking,
even if there’s only
the hollow wind,
even if
nothing
is there,
go and open the door.

At least
there’ll be
a draught.

Harry Angstrom

Wife Who Smashed Television Gets Jail

'She came home, my Lord, and smashed in the television;
Me and the kids were peaceably watching Kojak
When she marched into the living room and declared
That if I didn't turn off the television immediately
She'd put her boot through the screen;
I didn't turn it off, so instead she turned it off -
I remember the moment exactly because Kojak
After shooting a dame with the same name as my wife
Snarled at the corpse - Goodnight, Queen Maeve -
And then she took off her boots and smashed in the television;
I had to bring the kids round to my mother's place;
We got there just before the finish of Kojak;
(My mother has a fondness for Kojak, my Lord):
When I returned home my wife had deposited
What was left of the television into the dustbin,
Saying - I didn't get married to a television
And I don't see why my kids or anybody else's kids
Should have a television for a father or mother,
We'd be much better off all down in the pub talking
Or playing bar-billiards -
Whereupon she disappeared off back down again to the pub.'
Justice O'Brádaigh said wives who preferred bar-billiards to
family television
Were a threat to the family which was the basic unit of society
As indeed the television itself could be said to be a basic unit of
the family
And when as in this case wives expressed their preference in
forms of violence
Jail was the only place for them. Leave to appeal was refused

Paul Durcan

Lady Chatterton

I first read this poem a few weeks ago and I can't seem to get it out of my head. I'm haunted by its sadness. I think the poet's brutal honesty makes it particularly moving.

The Last Part

They say ‘I don’t know how you do it.
No one can do it like you’.
I’ve made this part my own.
This is not the role I would have chosen, you know
I could be the supportive friend
Not the falling star.
I’d rather be up there – draped in Issey Miyake
Or perfectly belted in Prada –
Than down here boxed, never to be unwrapped.
But – fill in the cliché as appropriate –
God never sends us anything we cannot cope with
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Of course, it could do both
In either order.

I count my blessings. I am lucky and skilful.
Happiness glistens in my life like jewels under lights.
I have a talent for finding, seizing, holding on to joy.
Friends and family are too small, as words, for this
perfect harvest.

The parting is bitter though.
Sometimes, in the darkest hours, pre-dawn
I hear taxi engines churning
Maybe a limo to the airport, such as used to come for me.
And I think it’s time
For me to head to a more unknown destination
Slim again, furred and painted
I will slip into the back
And catch the driver’s eye.
‘What time do we need to be there?’ he says.
Any time now, I say.
Any time now.

Deborah Keily

‘The Last Part’ from Goodbye by Deborah Keily. Copyright © 2015 The Keily estate.

Deborah passed away from cancer shortly after writing this poem.

Harry Angstrom

Thank You Thank You
(following a series of lectures on poetry)

We are not alone in our loneliness
Others have been here and known
Griefs we thought our special own,
Problems that we could not solve,
Lovers that we could not have,
Pleasures that we missed by inches…
I thank you and I say how proud
That I have been by fate allowed
To stand here having the joyful chance
To claim my inheritance.
For most have died the day before
The opening of that holy door.

Patrick Kavanagh

Lady Chatterton

Harry, What are we like? We are making a habit of posting simultaneously in the various fora we frequent Happy Friday Harry!

Harry Angstrom

Lady Chatterton wrote: »

Harry, What are we like? We are making a habit of posting simultaneously in the various fora we frequent Happy Friday Harry!

It's déjà vu all over again, Lady C
Happy Friday to you too!

Professor Moriarty

Evidently Chickentown

John Cooper Clarke


The focking cops are focking keen
To focking keep it focking clean
The focking chief's a focking swine
Who focking draws a focking line
At focking fun and focking games
The focking kids he focking blames
Are nowehere to be focking found
Anywhere in Chickentown

The focking scene is focking sad
The focking news is focking bad
The focking weed is focking turf
The focking speed is focking surf
The focking folks are focking daft
Don't make me focking laugh
It focking hurts to look around
Everywhere in Chickentown

The focking train is focking late
You focking wait you focking wait
You're focking lost and focking found
Stuck in focking Chickentown

The focking view is focking vile
For focking miles and focking miles
The focking babies focking cry
The focking flowers focking die
The focking food is focking muck
The focking drains are focking focked
The colour scheme is focking brown
Everywhere in Chickentown

The focking pubs are focking dull
The focking clubs are focking full
Of focking girls and focking guys
With focking murder in their eyes
A focking bloke is focking stabbed
Waiting for a focking cab
You focking stay at focking home
The focking neighbors focking moan
Keep the focking racket down
This is focking Chickentown

The focking train is focking late
You focking wait you focking wait
You're focking lost and focking found
Stuck in focking Chickentown

The focking pies are focking old
The focking chips are focking cold
The focking beer is focking flat
The focking flats have focking rats
The focking clocks are focking wrong
The focking days are focking long
It focking gets you focking down
Evidently Chickentown

Lady Chatterton

An Epilogue

I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too.

John Masefield (1878 - 1967)

Lady Chatterton

Those who are near me do not know

Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are
Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words
Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you
They who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.

Ravindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

Ipso

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Evidently Chickentown

John Cooper Clarke


The focking cops are focking keen
To focking keep it focking clean
The focking chief's a focking swine
Who focking draws a focking line
At focking fun and focking games
The focking kids he focking blames
Are nowehere to be focking found
Anywhere in Chickentown

The focking scene is focking sad
The focking news is focking bad
The focking weed is focking turf
The focking speed is focking surf
The focking folks are focking daft
Don't make me focking laugh
It focking hurts to look around
Everywhere in Chickentown

The focking train is focking late
You focking wait you focking wait
You're focking lost and focking found
Stuck in focking Chickentown

The focking view is focking vile
For focking miles and focking miles
The focking babies focking cry
The focking flowers focking die
The focking food is focking muck
The focking drains are focking focked
The colour scheme is focking brown
Everywhere in Chickentown

The focking pubs are focking dull
The focking clubs are focking full
Of focking girls and focking guys
With focking murder in their eyes
A focking bloke is focking stabbed
Waiting for a focking cab
You focking stay at focking home
The focking neighbors focking moan
Keep the focking racket down
This is focking Chickentown

The focking train is focking late
You focking wait you focking wait
You're focking lost and focking found
Stuck in focking Chickentown

The focking pies are focking old
The focking chips are focking cold
The focking beer is focking flat
The focking flats have focking rats
The focking clocks are focking wrong
The focking days are focking long
It focking gets you focking down
Evidently Chickentown

They had this in an episode of The Sopranos, probably one of the best uses of a "song" in tv or film.

Lady Chatterton

Miles Away

I want you and you are not here. I pause
in this garden, breathing the colour thought is
before language into still air. Even your name
is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again
and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight
I make you up, imagine you, your movements clearer
than the words I have you say you said before.

Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me
with a look, standing here whilst cool late light
dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,
but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,
inventing love, until the calls of nightjars
interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,
into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

Carol Ann Duffy

marienbad

The Folly Of Being Comforted

W.B. Yeats

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience.'
Heart cries, 'No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.'
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.

https://youtu.be/rI5MF4CU1oE

Professor Moriarty

Overheard in County Sligo

Gillian Clarke


I married a man from County Roscommon
and I live in the back of beyond
with a field of cows and a yard of hens
and six white geese on the pond.

At my door’s a square of yellow corn
caught up by its corners and shaken,
and the road runs down through the open gate
and freedom’s there for the taking.

I had thought to work on the Abbey stage
or have my name in a book,
to see my thought on the printed page,
or still the crowd with a look.

But I turn to fold the breakfast cloth
and to polish the lustre and brass,
to order and dust the tumbled rooms
and find my face in the glass.

I ought to feel I’m a happy woman
for I lie in the lap of the land,
but I married the man from County Roscommon
and I live at the back of beyond.

Lady Chatterton

Standing Female Nude

Six hours like this for a few francs.
Belly nipple arse in the window light,
he drains the color from me. Further to the right,
Madame. And do try to be still.
I shall be represented analytically and hung
in great museums. The bourgeoisie will coo
at such an image of a river-whore. They call it Art.

Maybe. He is concerned with volume, space.
I with the next meal. You're getting thin,
Madame, this is not good. My breasts hang
slightly low, the studio is cold. In the tea-leaves
I can see the Queen of England gazing
on my shape. Magnificent, she murmurs,
moving on. It makes me laugh. His name

is Georges. They tell me he's a genius.
There are times he does not concentrate
and stiffens for my warmth.
He possesses me on canvas as he dips the brush
repeatedly into the paint. Little man,
you've not the money for the arts I sell.
Both poor, we make our living how we can.
I ask him Why do you do this? Because
I have to. There's no choice. Don't talk.
My smile confuses him. These artists
take themselves too seriously. At night I fill myself
with wine and dance around the bars. When it's finished
he shows me proudly, lights a cigarette. I say
Twelve francs and get my shawl. It does not look like me.

Carol Ann Duffy

Lady Chatterton

I'm dedicating this poem to Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton


For Women Who Are Difficult To Love

You are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire

feargale

June

Broom out the floor now, lay the fender by,
And plant this bee-sucked bough of woodbine there,
And let the window down. The butterfly
Floats in upon the sunbeam, and the fair
Tanned face of June, the nomad gipsy, laughs
Above her widespread wares, the while she tells
The farmers' fortunes in the fields, and quaffs
The water from the spider-peopled wells.
The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
And bobbing poppies flare like Elmo's light,
While siren-like the pollen-stained bees
Drone in the clover depths. And up the height
The cuckoo's voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,
Nor fear the clappers of the farmer's boy,
Who sleeps, like drunken Noah, in the shade
And loop this red rose in that hazel ring
That snares your little ear, for June is short
And we must joy in it and dance and sing,
And from her bounty draw her rosy worth.
Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south,
The wind wheel north to gather in the snow,
Even the roses spilt on youth's red mouth
Will soon blow down the road all roses go.

- Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)

Professor Moriarty

Pegasus

Patrick Kavanagh

My soul was an old horse
Offered for sale in twenty fairs.
I offered him to the Church--the buyers
Were little men who feared his unusual airs.
One said: 'Let him remain unbid
In the wind and rain and hunger
Of sin and we will get him--
With the winkers thrown in--for nothing.'

Then the men of State looked at
What I'd brought for sale.
One minister, wondering if
Another horse-body would fit the tail
That he'd kept for sentiment-
The relic of his own soul--
Said, 'I will graze him in lieu of his labour.'
I lent him for a week or more
And he came back a hurdle of bones,
Starved, overworked, in despair.
I nursed him on the roadside grass
To shape him for another fair.

I lowered my price. I stood him where
The broken-winded, spavined stand
And crooked shopkeepers said that he
Might do a season on the land--
But not for high-paid work in towns.
He'd do a tinker, possibly.
I begged, 'O make some offer now,
A soul is a poor man's tragedy.
He'll draw your dungiest cart,' I said,
'Show you short cuts to Mass,
Teach weather lore, at night collect
Bad debts from poor men's grass.'
And they would not.

Where the
Tinkers quarrel I went down
With my horse, my soul.
I cried, 'Who will bid me half a crown?'
From their rowdy bargaining
Not one turned. 'Soul,' I prayed,
'I have hawked you through the world
Of Church and State and meanest trade.
But this evening, halter off,
Never again will it go on.
On the south side of ditches
There is grazing of the sun.
No more haggling with the world....'

As I said these words he grew
Wings upon his back. Now I may ride him
Every land my imagination knew.

Lady Chatterton

Send Off

Half an hour before my flight was called
he walked across the airport bar towards me
carrying what was left of our future
together: two drinks on a tray.

Fleur Adcock



Loss

The day he moved out was terrible –
That evening she went through hell.
His absence wasn’t a problem
But the corkscrew had gone as well.

Wendy Cope

donegal_man

Amusement Park

We went to an amusement park,
my family and I.
We rode on rides so scary,
I expected I would die.

We rode a roller coaster
called The Homicidal Comet.
It had so many loop-de-loops
it nearly made us vomit.
We rode The Crazed Tornado,
and it jerked us hard and quick.
If it were any longer,
we would certainly be sick.

We rode The Psycho Octopus,
which packed a nasty punch.
I think we’re pretty lucky
that we didn’t lose our lunch.


Kenn Nesbitt

Professor Moriarty

Epitaph for a Darling Lady

Dorothy Parker

All her hours were yellow sands,
Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
Slipping warmly through her hands;
Patted into little castles.

Shiny day on shiny day
Tumbled in a rainbow clutter,
As she flipped them all away,
Sent them spinning down the gutter.

Leave for her a red young rose,
Go your way, and save your pity;
She is happy, for she knows
That her dust is very pretty.

donegal_man

The Chaucer Pubbe Gagge



Three fellowes wenten into a pubbe,
And gleefullye their handes did rubbe,
In expectatione of revelrie,
For 'twas the houre that is happye.
Greate botelles of wine did they quaffe,
And hadde a reallye good laffe.
'Til drunkennesse held fulle dominione,
For 'twas two for the price of one.
Yet after wine and meade and sac,
Man must have a massive snacke,
Great pasties from Cornwalle!
Scottishe eggs round like a balle!
Great hammes, quaile, ducke and geese!
They suck'd the bones and drank the grease!
(One fellowe stood all pale and wanne,
For he was vegetarianne)
Yet man knoweth that gluttonie,
Stoketh the fyre of lecherie,
Upon three young wenches rounde and slye,
The fellowes cast a wanton eye.
One did approach, with drunkenne winke:
"'Ello darlin', you fancy a drink?",
Soon they caught them on their knee,
'Twas like some grislye puppettrie!
Such was the lewdness and debaucherie -
'Twas like a sketche by Dick Emery!
(Except that Dick Emery is not yet borne -
So such comparisonne may not be drawne).
But then the fellowes began to pale,
For quaile are not the friende of ale!
And in their bellyes much confusione!
From their throats vile extrusione!
Stinking foule corruptionne!
Came spewinge forth from droolinge lippes,
The fetide stenche did fille the pubbe,
'Twas the very arse of Beelzebubbe!
Thrown they were, from the Horne And Trumpette,
In the street, no coyne, no strumpette.
Homeward bounde, must quicklie go,
To that ende - a donkey stole!
Their handes all with vomit greased,
The donkey was not pleased,
And threw them into a ditche of ****e!
They all agreed: "What a brillant night!"


Bill Bailey

DunnoKidz

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed (Sonnet XLIII) Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
and in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Lady Chatterton

Telephone Home

I hear your voice saying Hello in that guarded way
you have, as if you fear bad news, imagine you
standing in our dark hall, waiting, as my silver coin
jams in the slot and frantic bleeps repeat themselves
along the line until your end goes slack. The wet platform
stretches away from me towards the South and home.

I try again, dial the nine numbers you wrote once
on a postcard. The stranger waiting outside stares
through the glass that isn’t there, a sad portrait
someone abandoned. I close my eyes…. Hello?......see myself
later this evening, two hundred miles and two hours nearer
where I want to be. I love you. This is me speaking.

Carol Ann Duffy

This poem is a little dated in so far as phone boxes are almost a thing of the past now but .... we still have to battle poor mobile/broadband coverage at times when trying to make contact with home......

Professor Moriarty

High and Low

James H. Cousins

He stumbled home from Clifden fair
With drunken song and cheeks aglow
Yet there was something in his air
That spoke of kingship long ago.

I sighed, and inly cried
With grief
That one so high should fall so low.

But he snatched a flower and sniffed its scent
And held it to the sunset sky
Some old sweet rapture through him went
And kindled in his bloodshot eye.

I turned, and inly burned
With joy
That one so low should rise so high.

Lady Chatterton

Happy Birthday, W.B. Yeats.


A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

W.B. Yeats

(13/06/1865 - 28/01/1939)

Professor Moriarty

Mirror in February

Thomas Kinsella

The day dawns, with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed -- my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy --
I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.

It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the wakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities;
And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young, and not renewable, but man.

DunnoKidz

The Poor Ghost

Christina Rossetti

"Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,
With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?"
"From the other world I come back to you,
My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew.
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But tomorrow you shall know this too."

"Oh not tomorrow into the dark, I pray;
Oh not tomorrow, too soon to go away:
Here I feel warm and well-content and gay:
Give me another year, another day."

"Am I so changed in a day and a night
That mine own only love shrinks from me with fright,
Is fain to turn away to left or right
And cover up his eyes from the sight?"

"Indeed I loved you, my chosen friend,
I loved you for life, but life has an end;
Thro' sickness I was ready to tend:
But death mars all, which we cannot mend.

"Indeed I loved you; I love you yet
If you will stay where your bed is set,
Where I have planted a violet
Which the wind waves, which the dew makes wet."

"Life is gone, then love too is gone,
It was a reed that I leant upon:
Never doubt 1 will leave you alone
And not wake you rattling bone with bone.

"I go home alone to my bed,
Dug deep at the foot and deep at the head,
Roofed in with a load of lead,
Warm enough for the forgotten dead.

"But why did your tears soak thro' the clay,
And why did your sobs wake me where I lay?
I was away, far enough away:
Let me sleep now till the Judgment Day."

Professor Moriarty

Someone

Dennis O'Driscoll

someone is dressing up for death today, a change of skirt or tie
eating a final feast of buttered sliced pan, tea
scarcely having noticed the erection that was his last
shaving his face to marble for the icy laying out
spraying with deodorant her coarse armpit grass
someone today is leaving home on business
saluting, terminally, the neighbours who will join in the cortege
someone is paring his nails for the last time, a precious moment
someone’s waist will not be marked with elastic in the future
someone is putting out milk bottles for a day that will not come
someone’s fresh breath is about to be taken clean away
someone is writing a cheque that will be rejected as ‘drawer deceased’
someone is circling posthumous dates on a calendar
someone is listening to an irrelevant weather forecast
someone is making rash promises to friends
someone’s coffin is being sanded, laminated, shined
who feels this morning quite as well as ever
someone if asked would find nothing remarkable in today’s date
perfume and goodbyes her final will and testament
someone today is seeing the world for the last time
as innocently as he had seen it first