Poems for All Occasions (8 page)

Audible his gasps.

Occasionally rubbing

the perspiration from

his furrowed brow.

He leans forward,

Clip, clip, clip,

A long carpet of

dusty soft wool

falls carelessly,

over his rubber boot,

Then turning the ewe,

Reversing her torso,

He continues to bare

her opposite side.

She bleats softly,

The cold of the air

Hits her pink red skin,

Causing a momentary

shiver, a loud sneeze.

Laying the shears

on a nearby shelf,

He pats the sheep

gently on her hind,

Saying “ be gone,

you shameless nudist,

Now I must shear

Your sire.”

Cardboard boxes, piled in bundles,

Books of every hue and kind,

Torn school books, some a memory,

Finger marks of each treasured child.

Mouse traps, cobwebs, a rusty oil lamp,

A radio brown, gone silent too,

Resting on a stool that tumbled,

Memories in each tiny groove,

Granda’s coat, the creases linger,

Just as if he’s hid inside,

Poems and stories, Nanna told us

Hidden in a tape, still bright.

Roisin’s teddy, with one eye missing,

Maura’s doll, she looks alive,

Se and Kevin’s dusty game board,

What Aquinas wore, when an altar boy.

The attic dark holds secrets many,

Things we love, could ne’er throw away,

We leave them there to cherish always,

And sort right through them one fine day.

The world to him is the garden

Round his door,

Blue skies are hard as icing on a cake.

The moon is just a golden ball,

Smiling face he sees,

To him, the moon is very real.

Then, he plans to go some day,

Way up high ,In a mighty spaceship,

Made in his own bedroom small,

But then the milkman blocks his view,

“O! to drive a van, as white, as snow”

To wear a cap with star in front”

A pilot, too he deems to be

To speed through clouds,

Of frosted sugar white,

Yet now, he dreams of the coffee shop

Down by the corner.

With all the lovely things he likes,

Just for a night to hide amongst

Its pale brown counters;

The very thought makes two eyes shine,

Two lips, they move in happy anticipation.

Until he dreams, A garda big and strong

Creeps quietly, slowly, neath the window,

He, himself is the mighty gangster

There inside, alone, he tears apart

The coloured boxes,

All lovely things

Around the foor are strewn.

One great big mess of

Chocolates, cakes and pies. . . .

He startles, when he hears a piercing siren,

some house distressed

with fames and treacherous fire,

That tower of strength,

With bells a ringing,

Flees to that awful scene of strife.

The little eyes see only painted glamour

He himself, is the freman climbing high,

Leaping, sweltering, rushing, daring,

He, the hero, who never ,never tires,

A mind so full

Of great and wild adventures

In the lovely brain ,of a little boy of five.

My Kinsmen from sweet Erin’s Isle,

To-morrow, we’ll fight and win,

And beat those tyrant foreigners,

Those pagan Northern men.

Who crossed the sea to plunder,

Insulted monk and maid,

Sitric Sly,Sigurd the Stout,

For their deeds, we’ll make them pay.

Maolmordha can’t be trusted,

Maelseachlann is a friend,

Who will lead the Tolka Division,

And help our clan to win.

Dalcassaians led by Murrough,

My son, who knows no fear,

My brothers four behind him,

Flann, Conor, Donough and Teigue.

Not forgetting my youthful heir,

Turlough of the mighty deeds.

Accompanied by Motha,

Tall with a boyish grin,

Grandson loved and cherished ,

By Deise’s fighting King.

Number three Division,

From across the Shannon’s waves,

Maelruanie and Teigue _’Kelly,

Connaught’s mighty braves.

To-morrow is Good Friday

And 1014, the year,

With the blessing of Christ’s Crucifix,

We’ll defeat those Danish men.

With Sword and Cross and mighty strokes,

And God sure on our side,

We’ll drive them o’er the Irish Sea,

Like deer, they’ll flee in fright.

To-day, I cried, tears of a mother,

In union with many mothers, whose dead babies

lay in smidereens in their arms, victims of

unscrupulous bombings, loud, harsh, scary,

Bombings of underground bunkers, where little children

Once played happily, oblivious of man made

killer monsters

Which accurately mix scrap with their baby flesh,

Bombs, targeted by men, who know the joy of fatherhood

And the soft touch of a child’s harmless grasp,

Happy to know ,their own offspring and spouses

are carefully at home in warm heated houses.

They term their deed as “mission excellently performed”

Oh God! how could such a deed be called “excellent”?

A mass of baby curls, entwined with dead soft baby flesh,

All united in one big bundle of destroyed humanity.

No war is worth such a scene, no sheik or his millions

Or his oil fields worth such a sacrifice.

I cry to visualise those hundreds of innocent babes

Clutching their mothers’ dead bodies,

Scattered in rubble in an underground bunker,

western atrocity,

Soldiers, pilots, presidents, no victory

will ever earn the name of a “Just War,”

Instead history will hate you

And the reprimand of God awaits you for your

disillusioned victory

Your “Excellent deeds” a sheer disaster.

(A
N AIR CRASH
)O
VER
L
OCKERBIE

Hushed silence, gasps of bewilderment

The calm voice of a dedicated pilot.

Prayers, sobs, variety of dialects

Raised to an extremely frightening buzz,

Blazing tongues of fire enveloping

The grey silver wing of the glistening plane,

Dark smoke casting a trail of on coming destruction

The evening sky, a furnace of red, far above the world,

Where down below humans walked and chatted,

Oblivious of the bird like danger lurking overhead.

Suddenly, a loud explosion,

which sent birds, animals, humans

scurrying in the little village down below,

A rush of human feet, but no place for protection

from the portions of that man made bird,

which tumbled from the heavens with fiery slaughter,

Heedless of the massacre inside its womb.

Human flesh intermingled with steel and grass,

Dust returned to dark brown soil,

uncaring where it landed,

Unconscious of creed, colour or nationality,

Soldier ,civilian, tradesman doctor,

Those who survived were glad to be alive.

Broken bones, scarred bodies, numbed hearts.

(January 1989.)

The spring well in the shrub covered quarry,

Shining mirror, liquid mirage,

On a bed of grey-white pebbles

Gave forth ,refreshing water,

Used from birth to death,

To wash all human blemishes,

Red blood to cold sweat.

A progressive farmer came,

Ambition his aim,

He deemed to stop the water’s flow

From its glasheen home,

Smothering it at base,

Leaving dried up pebbles

A dull heap in a dark hole,

Midst briar and bramble.

Causing an old lady’s sad dismay.

Then he, the learned one,

Installed in his home

Copper taps, marked hot and cold,

Pensioned off as useless

Granny’s old scrubbing board

“Change is progress, Gran,”he said.

“Now, that you’re old,

I must modernise our home.

Then he replaced the huge round hearth,

Where her fire once glowed

A fire of turf and sparkling logs,

Crackling timber

From the near by wood.

Where she baked and cooked

And nursed her young.

Now a memory in her aged head,

The earthenware jar she used to fill

With boiling water ,to warm her bed,

The self same water from the quarry’s well.

The city is lively, brisk, jolly, and fair,

But oh! for the country, with the fresh perfumed air,

The mountains so stately, like giants tall and high,

Their heads, they press softly against Heaven’s blue sky.

The murmuring waters skip down the blue slopes,

They glitter and fitter, and foam, as they flow,

They gurgle, and struggle, then fall with a roar,

They rattle and battle, then a sigh, a soft moan.

The sounds through the valley, are sweet to the ear

The thrush and the blackbird sing there, without fear.

The lark from the heavens, sends forth a soft strain,

And the angels, they chorus in joyful refrain.

The open hearth freside, with welcome it greets,

There’s joy all around the old Irish peat.

The children, they chatter, and laugh, talk and play,

There’s fun and enjoyment, till the end of the day.

The night spreads its cloak of dark dusky grey,

Across the green countryside’s bright happy face,

The birds disappear, the night owl appears,

Then silence sets in with slumber and peace

Then home in the country, I’ll cherish fore’er,

In my dreams, I will wander through

Roughty’s green vale,

When God calls me yonder to Heaven’s fair shore,

My spirit will wander in my own Irish home

Slugs sauntering on their bellies

Across the pavement of my lawn,

Leaving silver trails, slimy, glittering,

Disclosing an itinerary, unseen till dawn.

Glowing lines, silent movement.

Large gaping holes rupturing the green

Of my herbal treasures, bare, uncovered,

Thyme, sage, dill ,and rosemary,

Nourished now, the slimy gluttons.

Close their doors of shell so sleek,

Hide away ,intestines bulging,

Dawn’s bright alarm,

Their time to sleep.

Dawn was rising oe’r southern suburbia.

Songsters cleared their birdy throats

Gushing forth enchanting melody.

“Great,” I said, grasping my recorder.

Tiptoeing to the open window,

All set to rob the melodious chirpings

From the sky’s morning inhabitants.

Suddenly, a thunderous sound,

Interrupted my dawn chorus,

In dismay, I turned detecting

The cause of this unwelcome intrusion,

There he lay, mouth open, eyes closed,

His loud snores stirring the bed clothes,

Oblivious of the dawn chorus outside,

Entwinement of gasps, snorts and sighs,

Smothered the harmony

Of flocks on flight.

Born into homes of drudgery,

Starvation their heirloom.

Young lives ruptured into a scab world

bloated with vulture like rot,

swollen air filled bellies, feet too weak to walk,

Tongues too feeble to even talk, even cry in their human

misery.

A world, where headless chickens and animals with cut

throats would be a welcome sight,

easing the ache of starvation.

Limbs groping, when a dropping sun

reddens the colourful horizon.

A stabbing wind from a northwest stream

cuts the bones marrow

Acid poison in air and sky

Soaking the blood and mirth like flies held in bondage

by spiders in a web cocoon.

Doe rabbits in a hollow burrow,

Hours after giving birth exploited by frivolous bucks

in an uncaring world,

Where infant insects scramble and flee

From the danger of drone wings

In a universe where only the strong survive.

Across the horizon of sunshine and flowers

Drifting in a spray of love and happiness

The dawn sees a smiling moon ruling

a fleet of coasting stars and fleeing meteors

Sending waves of warmth and optimism

through the ploughed drills of riches

Where food, wine, and luxury increase

in multitudinous varieties.

Unaware of the existence of human like corpses

on the other side of the globe.

All are God’s children, but, why should

some be outcasts with protruding bones?

Their fellow humans, gluttons,

sick from over indulging in food and drink.

In the blossoming meadows of heaven

Surely wrongs will be made right

And oceans and land will give forth

human remains all equal in peace and justice.

Suffering and hunger unknown,

and the moon of plenty will

shine on all creeds, races, and colours.

Earthquakes slicing the earth’s crust,

Sending its restless vomits

Flying into the spaceless sphere,

Where tall buildings, offspring of man’s labour,

Are hurled back into the globe’s open womb,

With glutonous gulps, swallowing