Diminishes in the distance.
Some other inhabitant of the forest
Saved for the moment
The lone fox in the bushes.
THE TREES AND I
Nov 1988
(I wrote this poem, as I lay in bed, recovering from flu. Outside my window, a few large trees, bare but spirited, froliced in the breeze.)
Antibiotics fighting in my crust of clay,
Across my bed too weak to care, I lay,
But only then they caught my gaze
Those limbs of timber like giants, they stared.
As if to say “poor weakling dry your tears,
We’re here to entertain you ere you sleep,
Relax, just watch us quiver in the breeze,
And we will bring you to a world of dreams.”
Their limbs were bare this Winter eve
Millions of veins from branch to tree.
‘T was then I saw the pictures clear
That my friends the Threes had promised me.
Nestling in their midst I saw the noble heads
Of horses tall, some deer, some elephants
Their trunks araised, playing ball
With a painted clown, how he could fall
I saw his face, with monkeys glaring
Like tiny boats on the waves asailing.
But best of all was a grey brown hare
The trapeze expert I did declare.
I moved the pillow ‘neath my head
And gazed again from my sick bed,
Gone was the circus that I viewed
But what a sight, ’twas an instant cure.
A Victorian party in full swing
The ladies dancing they seemed to sing
The gents all chatting in groups serene
Raising their glasses in joyful glee.
Waiters tripping slipping, laughing,
Glasses falling, wine was splashing.
I moved my head and looked again
To see the view had changed and then,
My friends, the trees coaxed me to watch
Another drama a mighty plot.
And so the hours passed quickly by
Into a deep sleep, at last fell I.
With dreams of lovely friendly trees
Waving their arms, lullabying me to sleep.
Nobody should unduly cut down a tree
Because they can humour you and me,
Gaze into the heart of a mighty tree
And you will see each picture flee
You too may hear its whisper say,
“I am your friend my roots in clay,
I breathe and purify the smog filled air
Alone I stand in storm and hail
TWO WOMEN
In a semi private ward, two women lay, one young
with shining auburn hair,
The other, slightly aged, still showing the remnants
Of well shaped cheek bones, slightly wrinkled, her face. .
Both had tears in their eyes, as they gazed sideways at one another.
No words were spoken in that silent room,
Last night, both women felt the gentle kick of babies
in their wombs,
To-day only a numbness filled the vacuum,
where once life promised
To leap forth in joyous ecstasy.
The older of the two dropped tears over pale white cheeks.
For the third time, she knew she had lost a longed for child ,
Born in still birth, “lack of oxygen ,” they told her.
In her heart, there was little hope of ever holding
a baby soft and warm,
Flesh of her flesh in her motherly arms,
All hopes were dashed that morn, she felt too dazed
to scream and shout ,
Yet she longed to stand on top of a mountain and
tell of her loss aloud.
Her sad gaze rested on the teenager beside her,
abortion over, drooping eyes,
Perhaps too frightened to cope with a crying child.
To-day, she was feeling terrible. to- morrow,
she would leave yesterday behind
Perhaps sometimes cry, but the older woman
would cherish yesterday forever,
The memory of a baby corpse foremost in her mind.
HORROR OF WACO (APRIL 1993)
You enticed them there,
With promise of future life,
Claiming to be their Christ,
As if you could ever equal Him.
Who was gentle, pure and kind.
Korish, how proud your thought
Of absurd grandeur,
master of adult and child.
Those they called Mothers
were pleasure weapons
in your secluded harem
of brain washed women,
Whose violated bodies
utter unheard sighs.
Tears on the stones
of a Waco wall.
Sick and sore,
From the tiniest babe
To the mature squaw.
Wild furnace
Enveloping the compound,
Whose intense heat
Melted the inmates
To a fate of living hell.
A madman’s sick claim
Maturing in death
To an achieved aim.
WHERE FAITH COLLIDES
Sickening smell of human flesh,
in a trench ablaze,
sent pangs of nausea and vomit,
down her dried up gullet.
Still breathing In spite of her encounter
with smoky smothering gas,
Which earlier on, had sent her body
into a coma of unconscientiousness
A coma between earth and heaven.
In a dream, she saw Jerusalem,
Sixteen years hence she was born into
a city proud and beautiful
A city of shrines and, holy wells,
her home, her first womb.
Here neath a Polish sky,she is left
half dead by men of another faith.
Yet the ambition to live still lingered
in her shocked young brain.
Lying there naked, as when she first
escaped from her mother’s womb
Her ruptured head, she slighty turns
To gaze at the shadow of a figure in dark
green uniform
His form becomes more visible neath the
golden rays of an Auschwitz sunrise.
Holding a rifle in a hand that trembled and shook
He aimed its deadly point at the Jewish
head of dark brown ringlets.
She closed her eyes,
Glad that her agony would suddenly end,
Death, the dread of her childhood innocence
Would to day, be a welcome joy,
She would cherish and embrace its morbid image.
Seconds looked like hours
Yet no sound hit her ear drums
No burst of gunfire
Instead she felt the grasp of a healthy young hand,
Which hauled her forth
from the masses of decaying flesh
Flesh of her Jewish countrymen.
Two faiths collided
Hence that trench in Auschwitz
Yet the fairhaired Nazi
Failed to pull the trigger
His fascist principles overcome,
By the sight before him.
A fascist and a Jew face to face
His character overcame the urge,
to silence forever the young Jewess
Her knotted curls entwined in blood
Found a path of friendship into his heart.
The collision of faiths over,
He wiped away from her ruptured face,
The mass of earth and dust,
Liquidised in human blood.
She reminded him of his teenage sis
ter.
MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS
OF IRELAND.
( THE FOLLOWING VERSES WERE COMPOSED
BY ME TO TEACH MY PUPILS THE RIVERS AND
MOUNTAINS OF IRELAND
. . . A VERY SIMPLE WAY TO MEMORISE. )
RIVERS OF IRELAND
The LIFFEY flows through DUBLIN,
And CORK is on the LEE,
The SHANNON winds
through pastures green
Of LIMERICK to the sea.
The FOYLE through DERRY
winds its way,
The LAGAN through BELFAST,
And men in TIPPERARY watch
the SUIR go gently past.
The BOYNE by ancient DROGHEDA,
Flows quietly and free,
The Vartry flows through WICKLOW
Into the deep blue sea.
The SLANEY glides by WEXFORD
Its seventy miles in length,
The BARROW on NEW ROSS we see
Is a river full of strength.
Let’s not forget
THE MUNSTER BLACKWATER,
O’er lovely YOUGHAL fair,
Likewise the gentle BANDON,
Flowing softly through KINSALE.
And then the baby rivers
Nursing the SHANNON deep,
The INNY and the BROSNA, the DEALE,
THE MAIGUE, THE FEALE.
On the right of the SHANNON making it grow
Are the SUCK and THE FERGUS,
Gliding gently and slow.
MOUNTAINS OF IRELAND
ANTRIM has mountains so lovely,
In DOWN, NEAR ARMAGH, you can see
The MOUNTAINS OF MOURNE so slyly
Stretching downwards to greet the blue sea.
In WICKLOW, LUG NA QUILLA is towering,
I’ts over 3000 feet in the air,
And Wex ford can boast of its charming
Lofty and gallant BLACKSTAIRS.
Tipperary is wealthy in mountains,
It has the GALTEES, KNOCKMEALDOWN
And SLIEVEBLOOM
But KERRY has the highest peak in Ireland
The lovely an d stately CARRANTOOLE.
North of CLEW BAY in old MAYO,
Is NEIPHIN, THE BIG AND THE SMALL,
And the DONEGAL MOUNTAINS look glorious
With ERRIGAL towering o’er all.
POEM OF HOPE
When e’er you’re sad and lonely,
Treading over the same old trail,
Gaze outside at others’ problems,
Get involved in someone else’s maze.
If humans keep on hurrying,
How pained they must surely be.
Because one moves so quickly,
They never really see
The flowers in the garden,
Or the stars in the sky,
Everything unnoticed
When you are rushing by.
The old man by the roadside,
Alone, deserted he,
Or a young man , his heart is bleeding
Quivering without food or peace.
The stranger from a foreign land,
Sad his eyes, unfulfilled his dreams,
Just stop and gaze and listen
Though skies be overcast
Problems, like bad weather
Never really last.
Give praise for every blessing,
Your home, your job and friends,
Take nothing e’er for granted,
Its peace the good Lord sends.
No matter how you worry
If life seems minus fun,
Expect a bright to morrow,
Turn your face to the rising sun.
POEM WRITTEN on 4th Dec 2006
THE WASP 12TH SEPT 2007
I sat one day feeling sad, down hearted
My usual bright outlight in life was shattered
I wondered was there more to life in Mars, Pluto, Venus
Then I saw a wasp from the bee family, swarming
Around my living room wall
I saw life, I saw movement, I saw hope.
Had I lived in any of the unknown planets
How joyful I would have been
Had I sat alone there and then I saw
Gliding over the distant sky
A moving object,
it was only a bee or a wasp
But to me it was life, small though it was
It gave me hope, courage, confidence
The smallest of God’s creations
Was sent to this globe of ours
To relay a message from Heaven
“I am with you all my beloved
No matter where you all are,
Thank You God I get Your message.
INCOGNITA
’Twas one a.m. in the morning,
And Chris Barry’s Show was on,
I lay in bed and listened
To the phone ins, some short, some long.
The theme was” Dublin Brothels,”
Some in favour, loads against,
Then Chris explained he had a man,
Incognita outside one den.
A lady in her Autumn years
Rang in and said her Spake
She said that men
frequenting dens of sin,
Should be jailed for years, not weeks.
“Sugar Daddies,” she called them,
And rambled on with ease.
She swore they’d burn in hell fire
Their poor wives at home asleep.
Chris tried to soften her anger.
But she sighed a long sad moan,
At last he said quite innocently,
“So their deeds, you don’t condone.”
“I have a man Incognita, he said,
Pause a second, try relax”
Says she in dazed amazement,
“INCOGNITA,” where the feck is that?”
MY JEWEL IN THE SNOW
Snow flakes were falling,
When I sat with you,
Beneath a tall fir tree,
You vowed to be true.
You shivered so faintly,
Your eyes were aglow.
I’d die for you only,
My jewel in the snow.
CHORUS:
You whispered “I love you,”
My heart lost a beat.
The snow flakes fell softly,
And lay at your feet.
A picture so lovely,
So vivid, so clear,
Green branches, white carpet,
Love warm and real.
Snow flakes were falling,
The years have gone by,
By our fire side, we sit now,
And gaze out at the sky,
The flames leap up yonder,
They crackle and glow,
Our hearts are now warmer,
Goodbye to the snow.
MY OLD FAITHFUL CLOCK
Some people say they’re lonely,
When in a house alone,
But if they have a clock that ticks,
It’s better than lumps of gold.
Its tick-tock soothes one’s temperament,
It greets you first thing at morn,
And the last thing that you hear at night,
Is its peaceful gentle charm.
Should you suffer from insomnia,
Go get a clock to day
Sure that’s what all our mothers did,
When in cradles small we lay.
A clock is best with a tick-tock sound,
That has strong loud solid beats,
It drives away insomnia,
And helps each one to sleep.
Each baby ,too, will benefit,
Should you have one in the house,
The sound will make its little brain
Grow in peace with love abound.
They used to say in days gone by
That the clock was in league with death,
Because when its master pass
ed away
It was impossible again to set.
Its ticking stopped quite suddenly,
Without reason,push or shove,
The night my own father closed his eyes
And his soul had fled above.
So get a clock, do not delay,
You’ll have a friend for life,
Its rhythm will ease your heart beat,
Driving tension away and strife.
I guarantee it will cost you less,
Tan a visit to a doctor’s room,
The tick-tock makes you pause, relax,
Like mist o’er a full new moon.
SONG OF PEACE
(Written for Cashel competition)
Sentinel of peace,
Cashel’s Rock, I see,
Gauntly, stately, noble,
Throwing shadows on the green.
CHORUS;
Gone is battle’s thunder,
The kings, the poets, the scholars,
But still, you guard their treasures
From a high and lofty peak.
2.
Hush, let’s not awaken,
Your soldier sons asleeping,
Beneath the green vales over
The “Golden Vein” of peace.
REPEAT CHORUS;
Gone is battle’s thunder,
The kings, the poets, the scholars,
But still, you guard their treasures
From a high and lofty peak.
3.
Hush, Hush, hush, just listen,
The sky is filled with songsters,
The lowing of cattle yonder,
Enchant this place of peace.
4.
Silently, climb upwards,
And gaze across the valley,
How near you are to heaven,
On Cashel’s Rock of peace.
SUPERSTITIONS
When reason bows to instinct and superstitions rule our day,
We’re trodding on our fore fathers path, in their effort to explain,
Nature’s own existence, omens, be they good or bad,
Fate and charmed happenings, either make one sad or glad.
Carry an acorn in your pouch, then old you’ll never grow,
Put garlic often in your food, healthy from head to toe.
The Romans said that lettuce had top child bearing powers
The Welsh say Leeks in plenty, no better to be found.
Drop a knife, be ready, a visitor’s on the way,
Never sing before you rise, or at table any day,
When soot drops from the chimney, bad weather rules the sun,
Or when the dog and cat eat grass, rain is sure to come.
Seaweed hung inside the door is the best weather guide for you,
Poems for All Occasions Page 9