Irish poetry

In the dark night I waited for the boat
that bore his body as its dearest freight
and,with long time to wait
I cast in mind our country's horoscope
Striving to find the future from the past
From courage to the people known by rote
the laughing face,the unimpeded mind
the heart that slew itself through being kind
until she loomed at last
With light on either mast
And turned our Liffey to a Styx of hope

How often had I lain awake and heard
the pent up city trembling to the shot
I shall forget it not
And he alone the quarry for the lead
of each licentious savage on him set?
How often have I played that still they erred
when through the streets they dashed
and house and house was smashed
Now Death holds in a net
what England could not get
For forty thousand pounds upon his head

What master spy,what bloodhound nosed him out?
Surely he is our country's supreme foe
and surely he shall go
down the memorial ages.
He shall have the fame of Judas who McMurrogh clad
What alien schemeer or deluded lout
what Cain has caught his country by the throat?
what devil to destruction could devote
the brightest heart we had
while he was yet a lad
and his unblemished body to the grave?


When in the Mouth of Blossom your lips paled
the pale with resolution re-imbued
the gathering moltitude
with whom it is not lucky to contend
the Race becomes a Collins in this fray
The bravest of your land are now enmailed
So keep with Death your long acquainted tryst
no death can make your famous soul desist
that was in danger gay
from pointing out the way
to walk with you ennobled to the land

O.G. , 1922

If life in little places dies,
greater places share the loss,

life, if you like, may not be worth
One passing game of pitch and toss

And yet a Nation’s life is laid
In places like the Crooked Cross

(Brendan Kennelly ‘The Crooked Cross’ )


The spirit of any place is a hard thing to quantify but it surely owes much to the pastimes, the sorrows, the joys and the characters that touch the inhabitants of a place. This spirit of village Ireland is what inspired Brendan’s novel The Crooked Cross.


Bye now,
Lucia

well, anto, you call I answer, agus happy to...

Punishment, Seamus Heaney
I can feel the tug
of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front.

It blows her nipples
to amber beads,
it shakes the frail rigging
of her ribs.

I can see her drowned
body in the bog,
the weighing stone,
the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first
she was a barked sapling
that is dug up
oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head
like a stubble of black corn,
her blindfold a soiled bandage,
her noose a ring

to store
the memories of love.
Little adulteress,
before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur

of your brain's exposed
and darkening combs,
your muscles' webbing
and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilised outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

"The Mother of God", this is by William Butler Yeats

The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

I love poetry, as everyone knows poetry makes no money but gives eternity to your soul...
this one is by Patrick Kavanagh, I choose this because of the touching luke kelly song. It is told that one day he was drinking in the bailey in Dublin with Kelly, when asked to recite a poem (I wish I was there), "Raglan road", after he turned to kelly saying: "I have a song for you...", and he played it, perfectly. here it is.

On Raglan Road

On Raglan Road of an autumn day I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue
I saw the danger and I passed along the enchanted way
And I said let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's play
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay
Oh I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret signs
That's known to the artists who have known the true Gods of sound and stone
And words and tint without stint, I gave her poems to say
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had loved not as I should a creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay he'll lose his wings at the dawn of day

[Modificato da =Linog= 15/05/2006 16.01]

RESIGNED

at other times,
i talked
in rambling rhymes,
not yet chalked
on your blackboard.
i thought,
as my heart soared,
that i'd caught
the only one.
i wooed,
but what's begun's
unused,
so let's stay friends
and hope
each time transcends
the dope,
the ostrich fears.

we're lights,
unquenched by tears.
our nights,
of bridled hugs
can stay...
child's play
through resigned shrugs.

Brendan Hickey, "Beside my self"

There are Days

by John Montague

There are days when
one should be able
to pluck off one's head
like a dented or worn
helmet, straight from
the nape and collarbone
(those crackling branches!)
and place it firmly down
in the bed of a flowing stream.
Clear, clean, chill currents
coursing and spuming through
the sour and stale compartments
of the brain, dimmed eardrums,
bleared eyesockets, filmed tongue.
And then set it back again
on the base of the shoulders:
well tamped down, of course,
the laved skin and mouth,
the marble of the eyes
rinsed and ready
for love; for prophecy?

[Modificato da pedair 07/06/2006 10.32]

Rune of St Patrick

At Tara today in this fateful hour
I place all heaven with its power,
and the sun with its brightness,
and the snow with its whiteness,
and fire with all the strength it hath,
and lightning with its rapid wrath,
and the winds with their swiftness along their path,
and the sea with its deepness,
and the rocks with their steepness
and the earth with its starkness:
all these I place,
by God’s almighty help and grace,
between myself and the powers of darkness.

ottimo fotografo e conoscitore di poesia coi controcazzi.

io mi scuso, sarò banale, ma questa che posto mi piace troppo!

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats

STORM ON THE ISLAND

We are prepared: we build our houses squat,
sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.
This wizened earth has never troubled us
with no hay, so, as you see, there are no stacks
or stooks that can be lost. Nor are these trees
which might prove company when it blows full
blast: you know what i mean - leaves and branches
can raise a tragic chorus in a gale
so that you listen to the thing you fear
forgetting that it plummels your house too.
But there are no trees, no natural shelter.
You might think that the sea is company,
exploding comfortably down on the cliffs
but no: when it begins, the flung spray hits
the very windows, spits like a tame cat
turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives
and strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo,
we are bombarded by th empty air.
Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

Seamus Heaney, "Death of a naturalist"

troppo buono, copy, mi fai diventare rosso...
bene bene, sono contento che codesto topic si muove.
che ne dite di fare una sezione antologica anche sul sito? non tutto si trova su internet e sarebbe bello armarsi di un minimo di pazienza e copiare coi ditini santi qualche bel pezzo e metterlo a disposizione.
geireni mi odieranno per quanto ho proposto...
how about it?

---

Scritto da: pedair 22/06/2006 13.37
troppo buono, copy, mi fai diventare rosso...
bene bene, sono contento che codesto topic si muove.
che ne dite di fare una sezione antologica anche sul sito? non tutto si trova su internet e sarebbe bello armarsi di un minimo di pazienza e copiare coi ditini santi qualche bel pezzo e metterlo a disposizione.
geireni mi odieranno per quanto ho proposto...
how about it?

---

la proposta è ottima.
La mia partecipazione dipende da:
- quanto tempo mi porta via
- come faccio a recuperare le poesie

comunque, mi sembra una buona idea, dunque portala avanti dai :)

Carina l'idea di Pedair. Se fate la sezione antologica, qualcosa di carino ve la digito anch'io

Right, In Me.

I can recall,
even now,
that sweet,
soft-lipped kiss
and the moistening bliss,
as you whispered
"Happy Christmas"
in my derelict ear.

You're right,
in me, now;
floating freely,
without fear,
through the cobwebbed corridors
of my crumbling house of love,
whilst a voice,
far above
the wild, Yule-tide throng,
quietly,
questions the wrong,
in the longing to be touched,
by the plaintive singer,
with a yearning song.
How can this be too much?

Brendan Hickey

my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts

Il Dottor Beckett

for the very first time when I was studing for my pilot license and I loved it.


An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

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.

W.B. Yeats