A Jackdaw Sings

by Jim O'Leary

But Nature’s dream

  Did not become for him,

  Is he better, worse

  than you or me

  or equal,

  I don’t know”.

  MY FRIEND, PAUL....07

  Summer came and went

  With little rain to dampen him

  The streets were a comfort-base

  For his shuffle ‘round with ease

  And drifting was a pleasure

  With the sunshine on his craw;

  Always with his long coat on

  Paul, one side adrift,

  Redeemed the shopping trollies

  For the hackneying matrons

  Whose one euro meant so little

  But to him a certain win;

  He took his stand

  From morning through to night

  With a pee-break from time to time

  To weather pain

  And sometimes didn’t make it

  With no clothes to change,.....

  .....that day was never easy

  But he wouldn’t missed his gig,

  My friend was conscientious

  To a driven fault.

  The City’s shopping throngs

  In an ever-prancing drive

  Saw Paul sometimes,

  Sometimes not;

  When they did

  He met them eye-to-eye

  With a weathered smile;

  When they didn’t

  He wondered why

  But manners were his strength,.....

  .....A few times, though,

  He muttered an unkind word.

  He had some friends, a few

  Who never slipped by him

  Without acknowledging

  His ever-presence

  And he always shook them up

  For his investments;

  Paul had a dream

  That , maybe once by fluke,

  His dream, a coin of fortune,

  Would be palmed to him;

  He collected coins

  In a tin box held by string,

  His life’s endeavour,

  But so far the coins were dross,

  A motley ragged rattle

  Of his empty-reaching dreams;

  Hour upon hour, day upon day,

  In elements harsh and not

  He plies his pan-handle craft,

  An inoffensive plea for bounty

  From all-comers, friend or not,

  Regardless of the time and tide

  And with unrelenting shuffle-zeal

  He presses on undaunted for his coin.

  IN MEMORIAM

  FOR ‘JOE KAY’, RIP,

  (D. DECEMBER, 1994)

  Face the music...

  I cannot find the strength

  To face the day;

  The music haunts me

  And the tune belies my need

  And anyway

  I cannot see beyond tonight;

  The songs become

  A blind line of despair

  And words have

  No more meaning....

  ....Goodnight, Goodbye;

  He drifted into sleep

  And will not wake,

  He lost the tune

  But had the last dance.

  (‘Joe Kay’ was the temporary name given to a Dublin postman who took his own life in December, 1994 and who was not actually identified until some six months after his death)

  FOR RAY, RIP, (D.1995)

  When all the girls were gone

  He left

  And went his own way

  Quietly,

  It was his way to say goodbye;

  In early days

  He took a slow path

  In a shy way

  Seeking dream of dreams

  And timelessly kept up

  His trail

  Through fashion-places

  In search of love;

  He found it many times,

  A few times maybe,

  Each time

  A trip in ecstacy

  The last as magic

  As the first and more;

  Estranged, he dreamed

  After the ball was over

  So to speak

  But none were there or real,

  The last and first

  And all between were gone

  And now he waited

  Searched and died

  Locked in his own embrace.

  IN MEMORIAM PAT TIERNEY,

  RIP; (D.04.01.1996)

  Moon shadow,

  Kissing the world goodbye

  Was not my dream;

  You, moon-load,

  Saddled a boy with manhood

  Helped by a cohort

  Cocooned in surplice

  And stole the tender years

  And future of a child;

  Why on my back,

  You fucking coward,

  Why, in the fragrant innocence

  Of boy becoming man,

  Of simple pubiscence,

  Did you and you and you

  Press on me

  with your lusting drive;

  Why, moon,

  When your beams could shield,

  Did you with beam on beam

  Upon the back of helplessness

  Take what was mine, not yours,

  NOT YOURS!

  I cannot find the words to say,

  How could I say

  That you or you or you are forgiven;

  I can’t forgive for if I did

  I’d die before I’ll die

  And I will not give you

  Or you or you that satisfaction;

  I’ll know when it’s the time

  And I’ll decide,

  Not you or you or you,

  Because this life is mine!

  Where is the end

  Of this demeaning nightmare,

  What does it mean or is there anything,

  Where does it begin or is there a beginning,

  The turmoil of debate on life is death,

  I cannot face that death;

  I can, I must,

  Its mine

  And anyway

  What’s HIV?

  I wish I knew

  Or do I know

  That life was doomed

  From its beginning;

  Where is my childhood

  And my dreams of youth,

  Are they all gone

  Or were they ever there;

  I’ll know

  When it’s the time

  For my life

  And I’ll decide

  When its to end;

  I’m Pat,

  I love you, Pat,

  Why did it take

  So long to say;

  I’m Pat,

  I’m dead,

  What’s life,.....

  .....I’m fine now.

  (Pat Tierney died by his own hand in a Dublin churchyard on the 4th January, 1996, his thirty-ninth birthday. He had been forced to spend his early life in an ‘Industrial School’ run by Catholic clergy and sanctioned and supported by the Irish State; He told his tragic story in a book entitled ‘The Moon on my Back’.)

  IN MEMORIAM THOM MCGINTY,

  RIP, (D.1995)

  On Grafton Street

  Afterwards

  The Sun shone

  And the beauty people

  Were as only

  They can be

  And the stream of life

  Continued;

  I knew you

  Only barely

  But I knew

  Your time and space

  And presence

  And I saw you cry;

  Now I walk

  The street

  And the Diceman’s

  Gone.....

  .....Goodbye, Thom.

  IN MEMORIAM JACK, RIP, 18.04.2005

  A moment split-time

  Made him in a love-embrace,

  A tiny thing,

  A start of Jack to grow,

  A min
i-version

  Of a human beauty-form;

  He grew awhile inside

  And kicked for life

  From day to day

  To being with us;

  He sucked and rolled,

  An embryo-form,

  To face the tunnel

  Of a World embrace;

  A gasping pain

  Warned of sadness

  And a flow-fear

  took control;

  The safe-womb space

  Was flawed for once,

  Protection failed

  And Jack was gone;

  The womb-sack

  Brought him home,

  Needed here

  But wanted in another place

  To Heaven;

  Jack, an angel-child,

  Became an angel forever.

  IN MEMORIAM JOHN MCGAHERN,

  RIP, (1934-2006).

  Hello, John,

  Born to poor and Mammy’s pain,

  To be reared to Daddy’s fist

  And dire nothing;

  Gone to school, John,

  For the way to educate

  To a teacher, in ideals,

  To be sent away....You were!

  Earlier, you were the pup

  Of your beginning

  Walking wooded lanes

  Of the country of your baby-days;

  Later, cringing at the brink

  Where you cut your writing teeth,

  You strolled through

  The Nature-Lanes of home;

  A Teacher, Educator,

  embraced the frame

  Of that back-time

  But the Moral of

  The Maidens Dancing

  Shook the heavens

  and readied flames of hell

  For you, they said,.....

  .....You paid the price!

  The Scholar paid the price

  When the church’s Hammer

  Fell on his ‘sad’ life

  And, naturally,

  As in the place you walked and wrote,

  You took the crown of Joyce and others

  And the quiff of Beckett and the rest;

  Naturally,

  You shook the mantle

  of those erstwhile heroes

  into the memory

  of an empty chasm

  where excitement,

  driven by a Gaelic

  Scholar-Dream,

  Took awards from the far winds

  To an immortal frame

  With words and without dreams,

  With DREAMS;

  Now gone, your voice

  Acclaimed in my place

  And in yours,

  The message of your life,

  Was published to applause

  In your sojourn here and after;

  Your lisp-voice, a chronicle

  Of a life well known,

  Spoke of prison

  And of freedom

  Born, and brave alive,

  Now dead but lives.....

  ......Good Night, John

  And God Bless!

  FOR JOHN MCGAHERN,

  RIP; (1934-2006).

  Early

  In the country

  You saw

  a job for life

  And fought

  for that;

  Later

  in your words

  You looked

  for future,

  And sculpted

  A new place;

  In the end,

  In the world of you,

  A place in words

  was built

  And a woman-world

  Was born.

  FOR FRANK NASH, RIP.

  Sadness awaited

  Those around him, kin and not,

  The many who were reached

  By his entrancing soft embrace;

  The boy came of a soft beginning,

  The warmth of simple love

  And grew from that to search horizons

  For the wonder of all life;

  That boy sucked

  Of the wonder-breast

  Of local nurture

  And swelled to be what he became;

  The man, again, again,

  Grew more not for himself

  But for the people of his place

  And reached the summit of that dedication;

  That human-effort man

  Reached the fence, his end of being,

  And in its face he was not daunted

  By the prospect of his journey,.....

  ......He was ready to go home;

  Now, the sadness has evaporated

  Into the soft-mist

  Of the best of memory

  And the man is celebrated

  For the life of him, Frank Nash,

  Safe Home, Frank.

  IN MEMORIAM EMER, RIP, D. 2007

  Sad thoughts abounded

  When the end of beauty came;

  The news was bad,

  her young last breath

  was taken

  by her wish and hand;

  She planned each step,

  her trip to friends,

  embrace of family,

  and her leaving

  and she left,

  champagne-borne,

  tablet-laden,

  in a quiet sleep;

  Her friend,

  my child,

  heard the news

  with shock

  and tears flowed loose;

  The memories

  of a living life,

  together and apart,

  swept through her heart;

  Crying,

  with her children close,

  she sought an answer

  for the end of Emer;

  Sobbing,

  she took her child

  in a hug to her

  and the boy asked

  “Was she broken, Mam?’

  ”She was” my girl replied......

  IN MEMORIAM

  ANNA MARIA PATTWELL, RIP.

  I tipped the candle over

  It wasn’t my fault

  It was the badger in my head;

  A badness took my brain

  And I am lost

  In a mindless maze;

  I saw the badger

  And a freeway

  In my mind took over;

  Not thinking, not being clear

  Of the world or where I was,

  I looked and saw a haze;

  I saw that badger

  And I tried my best

  To think

  But nothing came;

  I am lost and trying to think

  But my mind is gone;

  I am alone fenced off

  Not here at all

  For me or you,....

  .....I’m sorry Son.

  IN MEMORIAM MICK LALLY, RIP.

  Life left a Legend yesterday

  And the people,

  Public, private, everyone,

  Lamented his too early passing,

  Felt a loss in their bones,

  The last trip of a journeyman;

  "You took us by surprise, Mick,

  You had much done, more to do";

  "I was finished, well and truly finished",

  He answered with a cheesy grin;

  "The rest will do me good

  Like many actors for a while

  But I'll look out for chances

  On the new-life stage that waits,

  I'll surely see ye all again

  At my first performance there".

  His last breath spent,

  Mick travelled

  In his unique style

  To the place set out for him

  On a heavenly stage

  Where waiting, "Holy God"

  Was the Director

  For his best endeavours yet;

  "The World will miss you, Mick,"

  The stages where he stepped

  Are echoing and his Gaelic voice

  Whispers back "
Well, Holy God,

  I'm not really gone at all,

  Just visiting Home”.

  IN MEMORIAM JIM O'DRISCOLL, RIP.

  Blossoms

  Upturned faces

  Climbed to the sky

  As the Sun lifted

  From its bed;

  The gold-orb

  Spanned its light

  To the world below

  And dark was gone

  To let him grow

  And hear the flowers sing

  In their angel-voice

  All the colours blooming

  In his wonder mind;

  But a darkness

  Fell too soon

  On his blossom-life,

  The light went out

  And he went home,....

  ....Good Night, Jim.

  PAINTING THE WIND.....

  (In Memoriam Denis Raphael Greene, RIP.)

  The wind blew in

  A shaggy yellow-red embrace

  Of the Spring Sun

  Glowing through the day

  To bear the soul

  Of an Island-Man away;

  He had passed with the stars,

  With the early Sun,

  And his leaving breath

  Took his life-vapour

  To a non-earth place

  Where he could rest in laughter;

  The world, his past, is gone

  To his new beginning,

  A soft-sun warming the path

  Of his last journey

  While chilly winds

  Forced collars to turn up;

  Off-white clouds

  Sparse in the sky

  Gave way to new-lines

  Of departing planes

  Searching their path

  On a westward journey

  Past the home of his beginning

  Past Valentia and beyond;

  The world witnessed

  The final journey

  Of an Island Man

  And saw him safely home.

  IN LOVING MEMORY.....

  Bent and shagged to death

  She worked her way

  Through feelings cold

  And sucked inside

  The frame-creation

  Of an angry man;

  Fucked and empty

  She walked her path

  Unsafe but holding

  An empty dream of love

  In the dead vessel

  Of his non-embrace;

  But she cracked

  Beneath his rampant ire

  And took the cash to leave

  But before she left

  She fucked him back

  With a long blade

  To send him home

  In return-pain,.....

  .....Then she walked

  behind his coffin

  to his grave

  in loving memory!

  A DARK PLACE