Poem Of The Month: September 2014

DRIVER

The side of his face.

The side of his head.

The side of his life

He wants me to hear.

Ginger hair, golden.

Boy yet man.

The car speeds

His riddles feed

Me with fire.

His griefs and joys

Are mine for now.

I know what will come

Of this.

I feel his hand tremble

Through my hair.

We talk of weather.

His eyes ripple pools of morning

Cried from Summer skies.

I am not ready.

But I’m not sure if I can

Wait one more lifetime,

My married love.

MY FIELDS THIS SPRINGTIME

To

Derek Mahon

a reply to your

THE SEA IN WINTER.

Mahon, you good man, I got

your cried communication sent

from solitary in your Portrush’s

burnt out Northern lawlessness.

It says it took you, off and on

a darkling year to write it down.

It’s thrice that time since when we met

with Heaney, Searson’s pub, Baggot Street.

You were on the dry and I

was on the go elsewhere else to try

my dicey throw at recognition.

We stood in the same position -

separated, sidelined, shorn

of any locks of strength we’d worn

North and South while young. Heaney,

climbed his tree and flew his way.

Many’s the martyred mile and metre

we’ve put down grimly since; more

the sutures of the soul to seal

in or out our commonweal.

Like St. Brendan Navigator’s boat,

we’ve sailed divergent courses straight

to new found lands (far from luckless

love) with harbours for love’s loss.

You fathered your son on that bed

I fathered mine on, Archilochus’ island,

Naoussa bay. Upon that day

we forged a friendship no one may

gainsay between us. You, Ulsterman.

Me, Munster. Both blessed with a son.

We both, in Greece, in our bedlock,

penned poems critical queens can’t knock.

Since then, like you left on my own,

I trailed in search of origin

to Celtic Asia, Azerbaijan

and having seen returned again

to put it in a printed book

for witness. Loneliness of lack

in that cold circle took me months

to sober start, where I stood once,

again. One friend made there was British.

That only goes to prove we Irish

who choose to stay at home live blind

sometimes to stymies in the mind -

although out foreign, free, alone,

we may forge friendships few’d condone

at home. The Sodom of Begorrah

begets no progeny tomorrow.

You thought of me through your cold pain.

I thought of you when I doused mine.

The only time we’ve talked since then

was on some city telephone.

For me that felt unsatisfactory

because we talked about the mystery

without the hieroglyphs of misery

to demonstrate our personal history.

For daily strength I read, decipher

your paean of triumph The Sea in Winter -

that human cri du coeur en hiver.

Enough for now to settle for!

What I may say in this reply

may sometimes seem to give the lie

to where my head and heart now bend;

but as my friend you’ll understand.

Tragedy’s penchant is live laughter

loud in the face of all disaster.

A lesson I’ve grievously learnt at last.

I’ve sworn now to renege my past,

but watch out for what comedy,

casual or otherwise, could destroy

values for which I’m willing to die.

You surfaced salvaged. So may I.

The rest of this poem's 42 stanzas can be

found in his publication My Fields This Spring Time.

Sonja Broderick (1971-2014)

Photo taken from her website here.

Desmond O'Grady (1935-2014)

Poet Desmond O'Grady in the Spaniard Pub in Kinsale.

Photo: John Minihan

- taken from Irish independent.ie