Chris Murray

“Something for Sunday Morning” by Maria McManus

July 19th, 2014

Something for Sunday morning

If you took a chance
And let those plates stop spinning,
Stuck your hands in your pockets
Or your fingers in your ears
And stepped back –
What would happen then?

After all that clatter
And when the shreds –
All the broken pieces
Were shovelled up
Wrapped away carefully
And left somewhere for landfill
What then?

All that falling, can only happen once,
And then it’s over. Done with.

As an alternative.
You could gather in those plates
Stack them neatly, one on top of the other
File under ‘something for someone else
Another time’, and let them sit there.

Or you could just watch the wobbly poles
Come to their inevitable standstill and decide
Whether to break them, so that puts
A stop to this, forever.

One way or another – you could choose
Silence, choose stillness, stop playing.

You choose.

When Nuria tells me
The Robin died
Because it flew into the glass
I know it is true.

It thought
That what it saw
Was endless sky –
That this reflection of sky
And the Bay of Biscay was reality.

Its neck has broken
And it lies supine on the steps.
I dare say
Death was instant –
I hope so, and that it didn’t suffer.

III

I know this one
And will share with you
Two stories of my own –
Near-misses, if you like.

The first was a dream
Of the Hummingbird
In all its shimmering brilliance, battering
On the window of my smallest most under-used room.
Outside, I’d made a garden, full of colours,
Into it, I planted tame versions of my dreams
Underneath the wild flowers
That greeted everyone who beat their path
To my front door,

But it was the illusion of the garden
Brought the Hummingbird
To beat itself to death upon the glass.

The second is the story of an interview.
I faced a four-strong panel. They were back-lit
With the afternoon sun
And the scene outside was rich and wonderful –
A river tumbled down a small green glen – all ferns and damp
And luscious. I could hear the sounds of water
Breakthrough the stultifying must inside.
The vigour of the river had, at one time,
Channelled a mill – the force of it ground millstones.

I remember I wore funereal black –
Considered smart and fitting
For such occasions; an indication
I was serious, reverential,
Intentional about the task –
It was a tailored form of knee-
Bending, a genuflection to authority, to formality –
A message that I would
Concede, submit, serve,
Toe-the-line, fit in.

Then, just as I gathered
My first breath, to lift
The register of my voice,
A summer Swallow flew
Full tilt into the image
Of that garden paradise
And was lost,
After it slammed hard against the glass
And fell into Montbretia.

At The Gower when we walked
We looked skywards. You could
Tell the difference between Swifts
And Swallows, House-martins and Sand-martins.

They’re all beautiful to me.
I find that I am mesmerized and gaze
Always into the blue of where they are –
And it’s enough.

VII

This past year or so,
I’ve tracked the Swallows too,
From Ireland, to Wales,
To Spain and Portugal, to Hungary,
And all the way to Cape Town
And back again.

VIII

Was it you I told the stories of the Hummingbirds to?
I’ve talked about it recently again, I know.

I heard Attenborough
Talk about them on the radio – of how,
Amidst the chaos of this world, and the catastrophic,
Devastation of our earth,
There is one small hopeful story, and it is this –

How people have laid a corridor of sweetness
All the way from Costa Rica to the North of North America
And how in this symbiosis
The Hummingbirds flourish against all odds–
How they reward the wilderness
Of our grey lives,
Gem-like and shimmering
Captivating the available light
And give it back to us
As they migrate
North – South – North –South –
North………….

They are delicate and tiny in the dying of this light.

And then, there is another story–
In the poem of Sah-Sin. Tess Gallagher tells us,
It is the Native American name for Hummingbird
And she tells how, when she found one,
In torpor, in the cold – she lifted it
And slipped it in under her breast
Next to her heart, to warm it,
In the hope it would revive again.

Finally, here’s my last message
to you, for now.

I found a montage
Of Hummingbirds with the ‘mirror in the mirror’,
And I’ll play that for you sometime, but –

Between here and there
Between now and then
Don’t fear anything.

And, if you decide
To stop catching those spinning falling plates

And, if you need something for your hands to hold –
Here’s mine.

You might.

.And if you take that chance,
.Just think –

Then maybe, just maybe,
We could dance instead.

Something for Sunday Morning is © Maria McManus

Maria McManus is a poet and playwright. Maria’s most recent work is We are Bone (Lagan Press 2013). A screenplay adaptation of the sequence Aill na Searrach; The Leap of the Foals, was developed in 2013 with NI Screen as part of the Short Steps development process.

Previous poetry includes The Cello Suites (Lagan Press 2009), which has been recorded with an original score composed and played by the cellist Tom Hughes. She is a contributing artist to Corners of Europe.

Reading the Dog (Lagan Press 2006) her first collection of poetry, was runner up in the 2007 Strong Awards at the Poetry Now International Festival and was also short-listed for the 2007 Glen Dimplex New Writers Award. In 2008 & 2012 she was awarded an Arts Council individual artist award. In 2005 she was awarded the inaugural Bedell Scholarship for Literature and World Citizenship, by the Aspen Writers’ Foundation, Colorado USA. She was awarded an MA with Distinction in English (Creative Writing) from Queen’s University Belfast in addition to a professional qualification in Occupational Therapy and an MBA from the University of Ulster.

In 2008 she co-wrote Bruised for Tinderbox Theatre Company. In 2006/07 she was playwright on attachment to Tinderbox. Previous theatre credits include His n Her’s and Nowhere Harder (2006) for Replay Theatre Company, and The Black-Out Show (2006) for Red Lead Arts.

Samples of readings by Maria can be viewed on Youtube at

Of ‘We Are Bone’ the poet Joan Newmann said ‘A joyful read as if you are coming towards each reader with your arms held out.’

Three Poems by Müesser Yeniay

July 12th, 2014

Flower Village

I learnt how to stand put
from a flower

Saw no other sun
drank no other water

I recognized my roots as a village
my earth, the sky

Seasons passed above me
a nest of ants, bosom friends

I learnt how to be a flower
solely… solely, standing put

Between My Body and the World

In my hair, despair is growing longer
its root is in me, however

like earth I am smooth
in the center of it

if I put my memories in a tent
-and myself in another tent –

my eyes are disappearing…

I am as if I have gone out a seed
I will go back into that seed

I am a footprint of a horseshoe
on the face of daytime

between my body and the world
I should put a distance

Now Do not Tell Me of Men!

My soul hurts so much that
I awaken the stones under the earth

My womanhood,
a moneybox filled with stones
a home to worms, woodpeckers
a cave to the wolves climbing down my body
on my arms, new seeds are sprinkled
the man of your life is searched
that is quite a serious matter

My womanhood, my cold snack
and my pubic, a home for nothingness,
the world stands here
and you! live with the rubbish thrown into you

When he is gone, tell him that flesh leaves nails
that you live with the science of the break
tell him of that serious illness

like a lamb skin, I am cold in your gaze
I am not in debt to you your mothers womb, sir!
my womanhood, my invaded continent

neither am I a land cultivated…
scratch off the organ that is not mine
like a snake skin, I wish I could drop it
it is not reasonable to be a mother to a murder

it is not homeland that is divided
but the body of woman
now, do not tell me of men!

Flower Village, Do Not Tell Me Of men! and Between My Body and the World are © Müesser Yeniay

Müesser Yeniay was born in İzmir, Turkey in 1984. She graduated from Ege University, with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has won several prizes in Turkey including Yunus Emre (2006), Homeros Attila İlhan (2007), Ali Riza Ertan (2009), Enver Gökçe (2013) poetry prizes.

Her first book Dibine Düşüyor Karanlık da was published in 2009 and her second book Evimi Dağlara Kurdum is a collection of translation from world poetry. Yeniden Çizdim Göğü was published in 2011. She has translated the poems of Persian poet Behruz Kia under the name of Lalelere Requiem. She has translated Selected Poems of Gerard Augustin together with Eray Canberk, Başak Aydınalp, Metin Cengiz (2011). She has also translated the Personal Anthology of Michel Cassir together with Eray Canberk and Metin Cengiz (2011). Lately, she has published a Contemporary Spanish Anthology with Metin Cengiz and Jaime B. Rosa. She has also published a book on modern Turkish Avant-garde poetry The Other Consciousness: Surrealism and The Second New (2013). Her latest poetry book Before Me There Were Deserts was published in 2014 in İstanbul.

Her poems have appeared in the following magazines abroad: The Voices Project, The Bakery, Sentinel Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Shot Glass Journal, Poesy, Shampoo, Los Angeles Review of Books, Mediterranean Poetry (USA&England); Kritya (India); Casa Della Poesia, Libere Luci (Italy); Poeticanet, Poiein (Greece); Revue Ayna, Souffle, L’oiseau de feu du Garlaban (France); Al Doha (Qatar); Tema (Croatia).

Her poems have been translated into English, French, Serbian, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Greek, Hindi, Spanish and Romanian. She participated in the poetry festivals like Sarajevo International Poetry Festival, September 2010 (Bosnia-Herzegovina); Nisan International Poetry Festival, May 2011 (Israel); Belgrad International Poetry Festival, September 2012 (Serbia); Voix Vives International Poetry Festival (Sete), July 2013 (France); Kritya International Poetry Festival, September 2013 (India), Galati/Antares International Poetry Festival, June 2014 (Romania).

Müesser is the editor of the literature magazine Şiirden (of Poetry). She is currently pursuing a PhD in Turkish literature at Bilkent University, Ankara, and is also a member of PEN and the Writers Syndicate of Turkey.

‘The Goose Tree’ by Moyra Donaldson

July 4th, 2014

The Goose Tree

‘There are likewise here many birds called barnacles,
which nature produces in a wonderful manner, out of
her ordinary course.’
-Topographia Hibernia, Gerald of Wales

There are certain trees
whereon shells grow,
white-coloured,
tending to russet.

Each shell contains
a little living creature;
like the first line
of a poem, a thing

like a lace of silk
delicately woven,
one end of which
is fastened to the shell,

and which at the other
feeds into the belly
of a rude mass,
that in time comes

to the shape and form
of a bird. When the bird
is perfectly grown,
the shell begins to gape.

First lace, then legs,
then all comes forth
until the goose hangs
only by the beak.

A short space after,
at full maturity,
it falls into the sea,
where it gathers feathers.

Those that fall
onto the land perish
and become nothing.
A blank page.

The Goose Tree is © Moyra Donaldson, from The Goose Tree (Liberties Press, 2014)

Moyra Donaldson
The Goose Tree
Liberties Press 2014

54 pages.Cover design by Karen Vaughan

Moyra Donaldson was born and brought up in Co Down and has been described as one of the country’s most distinctive and accomplished writers. She has published four previous collections, Snakeskin Stilettos (1998), Beneath The Ice (2001),The Horse’s Nest (2006) and Miracle Fruit (2010). Her poetry has won a number of awards, including the Allingham Award, the National Women’s Poetry Competition and the Cuirt New Writing Award. She has received four awards from the Arts Council NI, most recently, the Artist Career Enhancement Award.
.
(from Liberties Press)

An Index Of Women Poets

Review: A Wound’s Sound by Gillian Prew

June 22nd, 2014

A Wound’s Sound
by Gillian Prew
62 pages
Published by Oneiros Books in 2014

Cover Art by Matt Sesow

This poem

This poem has blood in its ears/
it is being hauled up by a hook/
it is losing consciousness

This Poem is by Gillian Prew

Gillian Prew’s recent publication A Wound’s Sound (Oneiros Books, 2014) is described thus,

The ambient howl-sound pervades everything. The gutted beasts are everywhere – billions raised and slaughtered for food globally each year. A Wound’s Sound is an attempt to distill and voice their pain and their silence.

The above being true, the book in itself is an elegiac affirmation of the beauty and terror of nature from a perspective offering itself as the animal voice of worship and of pain. That the animal is slaughtered at the hand of man guides Prew’s expression and advises the thematic flow of A Wound’s Sound. Within and beyond her desire to expose inhumane cruelty Prew’s subtle expressiveness cannot but affirm her own life and presence as a poet,

Sun Trap

World, damned hieroglyph,
your skin is not mine nor
do your fuchsias bend like bells for me.
it is hot today. I meet the sun alone-
more intimate than being born.
Too hot for human reason, yet
ants bear colossi round my feet.

Sun Trap is © Gillian Prew

Here, then is the tension at the heart of A Wound’s Sound: Man’s inhumanity to animals is expressed and projected through the poetic voice of a woman poet. The issue of projection and awareness of the pain of the other, in this case the pain of the animal raised for slaughter, is difficult to achieve as one can never be sure that the subjective is not impinging upon the creative process. The poet must then put herself into the centre of the book, as the voice of the wounded animal and as revelator of inhumane cruelty. Achieving this balance is probably a very difficult thing to do as it necessitates centering oneself at the heart of the action, both identifying with human cruelty at a personal level, while at once rejecting it within the self and elegiasing small loss.

One needs to be a poet of skill, organisation and experience to approach the themes that I have set out above here to retain enough neutrality to allow the poem to develop its expression so that the reader is not swamped in the subjective viewpoint of the poet. Prew succeeds in achieving an elegiac tone to the whole book without subverting the reader’s interest by producing short imagistic pieces alongside slightly longer and more thematically developed poems,

from Elegy

Nothing sounds but sky/nothing
to touch but folds of wind
and the rain doubled from sadness
tumbling itself down.

Deep/
deep
the loss it bends/
it sees

the trees
sucking up and spitting out
stripping the water to a drop/

a wet whisper/ a hole.

From Elegy by Gillian Prew

As here are wounded animals that have found themselves in the wrong place and time. Thus, an element of chance plays into Prew’s narrative,

No God

I was born into the wrong fields. They stuttered
with ever-goldening, the black pulse of growth,
and I played right into their forest skirts
full of bluebells and night time. my house was
smoke and separation.

from No God by Gillian Prew

A Wound’s Sound is in the main a book of short and micro-poems, some of which are gathered into groupings like “restlessly, driven by leaves ” (after Rilke) and Fragments from Noticing. These micro-poems are intense natural distillations imbued with unique colour and pared to the bone of the image,

The soaring cold barks at windows like a kept-out dog
whines through the small spaces/slows the old.

Jackdaws and magpies land on the treetops.
The branches flap/they wave.
An old man looks up in his flat cap/
his mouth a shut wound.

from” restlessly, driven by leaves”

Gillian Prew is a poetic craftswoman, her tight imagery and structuring allow her to encapsulate her symbols in perfect neat aphorisms that concentrate the reader’s mind wholly on the idea that she wishes to create. Prew’s colouring is limpidly gray, often suddenly dashed with colour like the rowanberry stain as blood symbolic.

Prew’s colour use is evocative and symbolic throughout A Wound’s Sound. The gimlet eye of the soaring bird suddenly dashes and alters the reader’s perspective. This use of device and altered perspective make her landscape planes appear wavering and fragile in many places. She handles her craft with great acuity and professionalism, and whilst the major themes of A Wound’s Sound could be maudlin, an assuredness of personal style allows the poet enough canvas to turn the universal themes of slaughter and death into the sweetly elegiac – a song of affirmation, or witness.

Poetry : Cut Neck by Zarina Zabrisky

June 14th, 2014

CUT NECK

HE (standing with a razor in one hand, a photograph in the other)

This neck connects
Her head to her body.
Her true self
To the garden of her delight
I should have married
A real woman
A woman
Who acts like a wife
Whose head belongs to me
Just like her body
A woman
Made of my rib
A woman
Out of whose rib
I was made
A mother
My mother

Not a phantom of a woman
With curves as lovely
As love itself
But with the eyes
Of a statue
Looking inside
Not outside
Not at me.

Fragmented reality.
Snatches of dreams.
Swimming in light
Silvery outlines shimmer
Close yet elusive
To catch them
I slash on her neck
With my razor
Dividing her head from her body
Photographic blood
Bursts
Burns my fingers.
I kill her
To make her mine

SHE (enters, he doesn’t see her)

You slashed at my neck
With your razor
You wanted my body dead, obedient,
Only yours,
Still desired by everyone,
Yet your toy
Your property.

My dear,
My neck is a living bean-stalk
It shoots for the sky
A rail-track for the train of my song
A beam of light
A telescopic snake
One thousand burning giraffes
Up and up only,
Away from you,
Away from any man.
So high
That all you can see
Are parts of me only:
Lips. Eyes. Tears.
Neck. Breasts. Hips.

Fragmented reality
Floating in violet sky
Oblivious to your lust.
No knife will help you.
I am not to be butchered.
I am not to be owned.

HE (looks out the window)

It is not the sun in the skies
It is lust.
Spread over the horizon
Like a snake,
Like a trap
Waiting to open,
These lips will devour you.
You think it is love
But it is death.
You think it is lovely
But it is evil.
I observe it
My photographic lens
Opens and shuts
The only way to survive
Is art.

SHE

In your fantasy
These lips are for kisses
For flaming touches
Flesh to flesh
Feeling flushed
Fiery
Full

Dear, my lips will devour you
Drink you
Drain you
Dry you
To the last drop
To your death

But not with love.

My lips are not for loving
Not for feasts
Nor for flesh
Nor for you
Nor for any other man
To own

My lips are for singing
For sounds so sinful
So strong so scary
They singe you
With music
Seal you
Steal you
Slice you
Scar you
Kill you

HE

Some women
Are songs
Not bodies
Screams
Not lovers
Sirens

SHE (laughing)

Tie yourself
To the mast
Blind yourself
Flee for your life,
Brave hero

My body is me
But I am not my body
Do not deconstruct me
Do not serve me on your plate
Do not attempt to consume me
Do not enter me as a mirror
Look into me first
Do not look at me
Listen to me, hear me, know me
For when you know me
You know you

HE (looks into the mirror)

When I try to go though your mirror
All I do
Is cut my hands
Your beauty was created to ruin the world
but the world will ruin your beauty
One thousand ships launched by you
Into the space of eternity
Never return
You send them to death

SHE

yet without me
you are never alive

THE VOICE OF SPACE

Like empty hangers
These lovers’ story never unfolds
It doesn’t exist anymore
yet it is here
Suspended in the air
Swinging in the draft
In the indeterminate place
The fur on the imaginary fur coats
ripples like waves
Heaves like breasts of sleeping beasts
This transparent narrative
Is magic carpet rich.
Invisible threads of him and her
Create the pattern
of eternity

RED RAIN AND RAZORS

this window is so dim
the garden outside looks wet
as if it is raining
it is not

i can see streams of water
pouring down the empty yard
and down the alley,
yet the asphalt is dry
light grey
pigeon grey
the asphalt is cracking
like a desert

yet what are those torrents in the yard
I’m calm
nothing hurts inside or outside
the yard is empty
the gate is swinging
and the water is flowing
yet it’s dry, so dry
but the trees are crying
I see roses and some flowers i don’t know
swaying and crying

the invisible rain keeps pounding on my head now
how loud is this rain
I look at the dry coffee table outside
at two empty cups
filling with the invisible rain

here comes the fire engine
the siren is deafening
I can’t hear it
but I see it
it is red
it is fire
the fire engine is here
to put out the rain
this red rain
here comes the police car
to arrest the red rain
here is the ambulance
they say it’s for me
I’m not in pain
yes this is a razor
but there is no blood
you must be blind
doctor
there is no rain
there is no fire
there is no blood
there is no love
and I’m not dying
I’m dead
I feel nothing

red rain and razors, cut neck and the voice of space are © Zarina Zabrisky

Author’s note :

I am attaching my poems from the series “Cut Neck” inspired by Man Ray and Lee Miller and first performed at the SF Legion of Honour Museum at the exhibition Man Ray/Lee Miller-Partners in Surrealism.

I was lucky enough to read next to Man Ray’s “Lips” but that performance was not taped, unfortunately. It was my favorite reading setting. I attach the images that have inspired the “Cut Neck” and “The Voice of Space” by Man Ray and the photographs of performing next to them. It was a very special moment in my artistic life.

There is a video of these poems performed in the Upper Gallery of the Museum. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gC4kjPh5Mc

If this video is too long, there is also a performance of “Cut Neck” only, by Simon Rogghe and myself to the music from a surrealist film “L’Etoile De Mer.” (also performed at the exhibit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2PEAKmE_Vc

Zabrina Zabrisky

Sequence: ‘Now’s Dark’ at Bone Orchard Poetry

June 13th, 2014

#1

now’s dark is a clever
adjustment of the iris
to the notlight,

now’s dark is an anguish
of silhouette hidden in
tree’s whispering reed

now’s dark is a white
chair beneath a tree
moon-illumined and
somehow wrongly set

there..

#2

now’s dark is a heap of mottled
silver black

ashen in its not-ight, it could be a
pile of ash,

it’s the silver of silica dotted with
miniscule impurities, sunless.

#3

now’s dark the pearl,
mother-of-pearl interior

imagined in its streaks
of opalescent, it doesn’t

reflect anything on its surfaces
beneath the black skin of its

bone button, or chain, its
dullness is an indictment
of light’s absence, its cycles.
Poems from ‘Now’s Dark’ by C. Murray be read at Bone Orchard Poetry and are © C. Murray

A Celebration of Irish Women Poets on Bloomsday 2014

June 8th, 2014

Eleanor Hooker

The Fall

Oh she bared her soul alright; it fell from a star cloud
Reigned by Canis Major. They knew it was authentic,
It whimpered like an unknown set loose inside a crowd
Of urban predators: fierce curs and savage sceptics
That roamed in packs. A few select gave shelter in
The telling, clad the naked soul in their protection,
Made suspect bargains to house her in a harlequin
that masked and silenced looked like her, even wore her skin.
But being undressed is like an honest thought, it cannot
Lie with dogs; it is the thing in itself, nothing more.
The truth is beastly but does not wag the tale. No, that
Is the subplot tellers invent when they call her whore.
And though her flesh is marked by canines, they strain to blame
Her first fall; judging original sin her true shame.

.
First published in The Shadow Owner’s Companion, February 2012

Eleanor Hooker’s debut collection of poems The Shadow Owner’s Companion, published by the Dedalus Press in February 2012, has been shortlisted for the Mountains to Sea dlr Strong/Shine award for best first collection in 2012. Her poem A Rite won the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland competition in June 2013.

Her poetry has been published in The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, The SHOp, Agenda, POEM: International English Language Quarterly, Southword (forthcoming), CanCan, Wordlegs, And Other Poems, ink sweat and tears (forthcoming).

She is a founder member and Programme Curator for the Dromineer Literary Festival. She is a helm and Press Officer for Lough Derg RNLI Lifeboat.

Fiona Bolger

cure poem for the lovelorn

a woman sits alone
her eyes are on the swan feathers
dropped by the moon upon the sea

she sees no-one on the horizon
but who can walk on water
dance on down

by day she weaves her stinging sadness
into nettle shirts, by night she waits
for her lover – the one who needs

to wear those painful clothes
to be fully human again
no longer trapped

on a cold moon
dropping feathers
on the sea

Cure Poems are © Fióna Bolger

Fiona Bolger’s work has appeared in Headspace, Southword, The Brown Critique, Can Can, Boyne Berries, Poetry Bus, The Chattahoochee Review, Bare Hands Poetry Anthology and others. Her poems first appeared in print on placards tied to lamp posts (UpStart 2011 General Election Campaign). They’ve also been on coffee cups (The Ash Sessions). Her grimoire, The Geometry of Love between the Elements, was published by Poetry Bus Press. She is of Dublin and Chennai and is a member of Dublin Writers’ Forum and Airfield Writers.

Mary Noonan

The Card

What goes by the name of love is banishment,
with now and then a postcard from the homeland.
– Samuel Beckett, First Love

I’m looking for a card,
one that holds the oriole
on the black pear tree –
will it be brazen or sweet,
junebug or whippoorwill,
Tupelo or Baton Rouge?
I drape myself in maps,
drift in colours and signs,
sleep on my seven books
of owls, frogs, alligators.

I want a card that quickens
codes, spills the secrets
of words, sends letters flying.
We used to name things,
now we travel the lines
past ghost-shack and scrub,
sun-bothered lizards skittering
under creosote and cocotillo.

This card must distil the frenzy
of the firefly as it waltzes
with its own blazing corpse.

The Card is © Mary Noonan

Mary Noonan lives in Cork. Her poems have been published in The Dark Horse, The North, Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Threepenny Review, Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, Wasafiri and Best of Irish Poetry 2010. She won the Listowel Poetry Collection Prize in 2010. Her first collection – The Fado House (Dedalus Press, 2012) – was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for a First Collection (2013) and the Strong/Shine Award (2013).

Máire Mhac an tSaoi

Ceathrúintí Mháire Ní Ógáin

I

Ach a mbead gafa as an líon so –
Is nár lige Dia gur fada san –
B’fhéidir go bhfónfaidh cuimhneamh
Ar a bhfuaireas de shuaimhneas id bhaclainn

Nuair a bheidh arm o chumas guíochtaint,
Comaoine is éiteacht Aifrinn,
Cé déarfaidh ansan nach cuí dhom
Ar ‘shonsa is arm o shon féin achaine?

Ach comhairle idir dhá linn duit,
Ná téir ródhílis in achrann,
Mar go bhfuilimse meáite ar scaoileadh
Pé cuibhreann a snaidhmfear eadrainn.

II

Beagbheann ar amhras daoine,
Beagbheann ar chros na sagart,
Ar gach ní ach bheith sínte
Idir tú agus falla –

Neamhshuim liom fuacht na hoíche,
Neamhshuim liom scríb is fearthainn,
Sa domhan cúng rúin teolaí seo
Ná téann thar fhaobhar na leapan –

Ar a bhfuil romhainn ní smaoinfeam,
Ar a bhfuil déanta cheana,
Linne an uain, a chroí istigh,
Is mairfidh sí go maidin.

III

Achar bliana atáim
Ag luí farat id chlúid,
Deacair anois a rá
Cad leis a raibh mo shúil!

Ghabhais de chosaibh i gcion
A tugadh go fial ar dtúis,
Gan aithint féin féd throigh
Fulaing na feola a bhrúigh!

Is fós tá an creat umhal
Ar mhaithe le seanagheallúint,
Ach ó thost cantain an chroí
Tránn áthas an phléisiúir.

IV

Tá naí an éada ag deol mo chíchse
Is mé ag tál air de ló is d’oíche;
An garlach gránna ag cur na bhfiacal,
Is de nimh a ghreama mo chuisle líonta.

A ghrá, ná maireadh an trú beag eadrainn,
Is a fholláine, shláine a bhí ár n-aithne;
Barántas cnis a chloígh lem chneas airsin,
Is séala láimhe a raibh gach cead aici.

Féach nach meáite mé ar chion a shéanadh,
Cé gur sháigh an t-amhras go doimhin a phréa’chas;
Ar lair dheá-tharraic ná déan éigean,
Is díolfaidh sí an comhar leat ina séasúr féinig.

V

Is éachtach an rud í an phian,
Mar chaitheann an cliabh,
Is ná tugann faoiseamh ná spás
Ná sánas de ló ná d’oíche’ –

An té atá i bpéin mar táim
Ní raibh uaigneach ná ina aonar riamh,
Ach ag iompar cuileachtan de shíor
Mar bhean gin féna coim.

VI

‘Ní chodlaím istoíche’ –
Beag an rá, ach an bhfionnfar choíche
Ar shúile oscailte
Ualach na hoíche?

VII

Fada liom anocht!
Do bhí ann oíche
Nárbh fhada faratsa –
Dá leomhfainn cuimhneamh.

Go deimhin níor dheacair san.
An ród a d’fhillfinn –
Dá mba cheadaithe
Tréis aithrí ann.

Luí chun suilt
Is éirí chun aoibhnis
Siúd ba cheachtadh dhúinn –
Dá bhfaigheann dul siar air.

Cathrúintí Mháire Ní Ógáin from, Margadh na Saoire. Dublin: Sairseal agus Dill, 1956, 1971.

Mary Hogan’s quatrains

I

O to be disentangled from this net –
And may God not let that be long –
Perhaps the memory will help
Of all the ease I had in your arms.

When I shall have the ability to pray,
Take communion and hear Mass,
Who will say then that it is not seemly
To intercede on yours and on my behalf?

But meanwhile my advice to you,
Don’t get too firmly enmeshed,
For I am determined to let loose
Whatever bond between us is tied.

II

I care little for people’s suspicions,
I care little for priests’ prohibitions,
For anything save to lie stretched
Between you and the wall –

I am indifferent to the night’s cold,
I am indifferent to the squall or rain,
When in this warm narrow secret world
Which does not go beyond the edge of the bed –

We shall not contemplate what lies before us,
What has already been done,
Time is on our side, my dearest,
And it will last til morning.

III

For the space of a year I have been
Lying with you in your embrace,
Hard to say now
What I was hoping for!

You trampled on love,
That was freely given at first,
Unaware of the suffering
Of the flesh you crushed under foot.

And yet the flesh is willing
For the sake of an old familiar pledge,
But since the heart’s singing has ceased
The joy of pleasure ebbs.

IV

The child of jealousy is sucking my breast,
While I nurse it day and night;
The ugly brat is cutting teeth,
My veins throb with the venom of its bite.

My love, may the little wretch not remain between us,
Seeing how healthy and full was our knowledge of each other;
It was a skin warranty that kept us together,
And a seal of hand that knew no bounds.

See how I am not determined to deny love,
Though doubt has plunged its roots deep;
Do not force a willing mare,
And she will recompense you in her own season.

V

Pain is a powerful thing,
How it consumes the breast,
It gives no respite day or night,
It gives no peace or rest –

Anyone who feels pain like me,
Has never been lonely or alone,
But is ever bearing company
Like a pregnant woman, in her womb.

VI

‘I do not sleep at night’ –
Of no account, but will we ever know
With open eyes
The burden of the night?

VII

Tonight seems never-ending!
There was once such a night
Which with you was not long –
Dare I call to mind.

That would not be hard, for sure,
The road on which I would return –
If it were permitted
After repentance.

Lying down for joy
And rising to pleasure
That is what we practised –
If only I could return to it.

Translation by James Gleasure.

Cathrúintí Mháire Ní Ógáin from, Margadh na Saoire. Dublin: Sairseal agus Dill, 1956, 1971.

Máire Mhac an tSaoi (born 4 April 1922) is one of the most acclaimed and respected Irish language scholars, poets, writers and academics of modern literature in Irish. Along with Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máirtín Ó Direáin she is, in the words of Louis de Paor, ‘one of a trinity of poets who revolutionised Irish language poetry in the 1940s and 50s. (Wiki)

Deborah Watkins

Missing

Hour by hour you lie hidden under forest light
as it rises and falls dimly through the trees.
Year by year you slip a few more degrees
into the earth while you wait and yet
your ending clings, like the lingering sound of an old tune.

Each season breeds cool abeyance –
wood sorrel drifts ivory white
while chard green ivy creeps.
Dog roses run wild. They root in your place,
parade their disdain but your bones

remain constant and strong – poised
silent cymbals in the theatre’s gloam –
they wait for the musician to stand,
take them in his arms and ring
out a crash of sound that cries

I’m here, I’m here!

Missing is © Deborah Watkins

Deborah Watkins is a painter and a writer who also worked for many years making decorative ceramics. She grew up in Dublin and studied craft design at the National College of Art and Design. Deborah moved to Connemara in 1991 where she now lives with her three young daughters and her husband Gavin Lavelle, who is also an artist. They run the family business together in Clifden – The Lavelle Art Gallery which showcases painting and sculpture by local and nationally renowned artists.
Deborah began to paint more or less full time in 2008. She writes a blog about her painting processes and the natural landscape in Connemara, which reached the final of the 2012 Irish Blog Awards. Deborah began writing poetry in 2013 and she attends a poetry workshop run by Galway poet and essayist Kevin Higgins. Two of her poems have been published in Skylight 47, the Galway poetry newspaper, one in the forthcoming Summer issue. Deborah is also a feature writer in her local newspaper the Connemara Journal

Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Recovery Room, Maternity Ward

(for Savita Halappanavar)

The procedure complete,
I awaken
alone, weak beneath starched sheets.
As the hospital sleeps, my fingers fumble
over the sutured scar, a jagged map
of mourning stitched into my skin —
empty without and empty within.
Beyond these white curtains,
stars shine bright as Diwali
in a cold night sky.
Someday, within these walls,
I will hear my baby cry.
Cradling my hollowed womb,
I trace this new wound and weep.
The only sound I hear now is the fading retreat
of a doctor’s footsteps, echoing my heartbeat.

Recovery Room, Maternity Ward is © Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland and internationally. Her Irish language collections Résheoid and Dúlasair are both published by Coiscéim. The Arts Council of Ireland has twice awarded her literature bursaries (2011 and 2013). In 2012, she was a winner of Wigtown Gaelic poetry contest— the Scottish National Poetry Prize. Her short collection of poems in English Ouroboros was recently longlisted for The Venture Award (UK).

Poetry: “restlessly, driven by leaves” by Gillian Prew

June 7th, 2014

“restlessly, driven by leaves.”
 
after a line by Rilke
 
Leaf-sound/sea-sound/bird-sound/
shoved places of air –
pockets of autumn/natural languages.
 
*
The scuffed water/the swinging fruits/the ruffled gulls
 
                        - wind with its throat open.
 
*
 
The soaring cold barks at windows like a kept-out dog
whines through the small spaces/slows the old.
 
*
And in cold’s quiet undertow blood is not quite wide enough/blood
clotted on pavements rowanberry red.
 
*
My ear to the stone     hard/hard
a murmur is coming/
a tremble of locked-up hooves.
 
*
Jackdaws and magpies land on the treetops.
The branches flap/they wave.
An old man looks up in his flat cap/
his mouth a shut wound.
 
*
Kolya, ghost-white
traipsing the ochre-cluttered gardens
            and Milo, a shadow/
his guts thrust up to his chest.
 
*
Autumn/
the days loop-gusts tight to the bone
loose to the sky/the lifted holes.

“restlessly, driven by leaves” from A Wound’s Sound by Gillian Prew. Published Oneiros Books, 2014

A WOUND’S SOUND

Gillian Prew

The ambient howl-sound pervades everything. The gutted beasts are everywhere – billions raised and slaughtered for food globally each year. ‘A Wound’s Sound’ is an attempt to distill and voice their pain and their silence.

Oneiros Books Poetry Catalogue

“Sewage Babies” and “Missing” by Deborah Watkins

June 4th, 2014

Sewage babies

Put on our Sunday best for Mass.
Let on we haven’t heard
about dead babies in Tuam.
Eight hundred infants,
bunkered in human filth.
Bones tossed like old coins,
dump of dead currency.

To those who defend
servants of God and state:
‘They did the best
with what they had.’
What have we?

Garrison church.
Proud, complicit government.
Blessed well of
indifference.

Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers

Missing

Deborah began to paint more or less full time in 2008. She writes a blog about her painting processes and the natural landscape in Connemara, which reached the final of the 2012 Irish Blog Awards. Deborah began writing poetry in 2013 and she attends a poetry workshop run by Galway poet and essayist Kevin Higgins. Two of her poems have been published in Skylight 47, the Galway poetry newspaper, one in the forthcoming Summer issue. Deborah is also a feature writer in her local newspaper the Connemara Journal.

Some micro poems at The Bijou Poetry Review

May 20th, 2014

Signature

two bird notes
stave-clung in
the feathered cold

not amber dawn can obliterate—
they sway their separate branches.

Tree

tree dilapidates in the face of dawn,
in liquid dawn tree dissolves back.

Umbrellas

The type of wind
he could not find

breath-in

frail silks black-circle him
sheltering-in

safe_image Tree, Signature, and Umbrellas are from Signature, by C. Murray
Micro-poems from ‘Signature’ published at Bijou Poetry