The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry

by Patrick Crotty (ed)

  Then patter in and out of airless rooms;

  Trip stairs; slam door; and stamp along the street,

  Slapping the solid reticence of day.

  Tomorrow forgotten, in the often gay

  Visit of night, I thankfully retreat

  Into a gloomy hazard, like the tomb’s.

  Art

  Imagination is off paddling among rocks

  while thought is pulling on its morning socks

  or rummaging for words in drawer and box.

  Give over. Art is easy. All awards –

  (out of the fog, the bog, and the slaughter yards) –

  no going back to those masks, those muddy discards;

  finished the novitiate in dank jungles of terrestrial

  fevers, where lightnings mocked what thunder guessed at.

  Crazed, self-entangled, whither have I not fled –

  In dark tumble-down ablution houses of the dead

  at wild sudden recognitions hung my head.

  But art has escaped – to holy colour, close music, power –

  to grace and virtue,

  to the far-come dew

  on the precise flower.

  JAMES JOYCE

  Buy a book in brown paper

  Buy a book in brown paper

  From Faber and Faber

  To see Annie Liffey trip, tumble and caper.

  Sevensinns in her singthings,

  Plurabells on her prose,

  Seashell ebb music wayriver she flows.

  from Finnegans Wake

  The Ondt and the Gracehoper

  He larved ond he larved on he merd such a nauses

  The Gracehoper feared he would mixplace his fauces.

  I forgive you, grondt Ondt, said the Gracehoper, weeping,

  For their sukes of the sakes you are safe in whose keeping.

  Teach Floh and Luse polkas, show Bienie where’s sweet

  And be sure Vespatilla fines fat ones to heat.

  As I once played the piper I must now pay the count

  So saida to Moyhammlet and marhaba to your Mount!

  Let who likes lump above so what flies be a full ’un;

  I could not feel moregruggy if this was prompollen.

  I pick up your reproof, the horsegift of a friend,

  For the prize of your save is the price of my spend.

  Can castwhores pulladeftkiss if oldpollocks forsake ’em

  Or Culex feel etchy if Pulex don’t wake him?

  A locus to loue, a term it t’embarass,

  These twain are the twins that tick Homo Vulgaris.

  Has Aquileone nort winged to go syf

  Since the Gwyfyn we were in his farrest drewbryf

  And that Accident Man not beseeked where his story ends

  Since longsephyring sighs sought heartseast for their orience?

  We are Wastenot with Want, precondamned, two and true,

  Till Nolans go volants and Bruneyes come blue.

  Ere those gidflirts now gadding you quit your mocks for my gropes

  An extense must impull, an elapse must elopes,

  Of my tectucs takestock, tinktact, and ail’s weal;

  As I view by your farlook hale yourself to my heal.

  Partiprise my thinwhins whiles my blink points unbroken on

  Your whole’s whercabroads with Tout’s trightyright token on.

  My in risible universe youdly haud find

  Sulch oxtrabeeforeness meat soveal behind.

  Your feats end enormous, your volumes immense,

  (May the Graces I hoped for sing your Ondtship song sense!),

  Your genus its worldwide, your spacest sublime!

  But, Holy Saltmartin, why can’t you beat time?

  AUSTIN CLARKE

  (1896–1974)

  The Lost Heifer

  When the black herds of the rain were grazing

  In the gap of the pure cold wind

  And the watery hazes of the hazel

  Brought her into my mind,

  I thought of the last honey by the water

  That no hive can find.

  Brightness was drenching through the branches

  When she wandered again,

  Turning the silver out of dark grasses

  Where the skylark had lain,

  And her voice coming softly over the meadow

  Was the mist becoming rain.

  The Planter’s Daughter

  When night stirred at sea

  And the fire brought a crowd in,

  They say that her beauty

  Was music in mouth

  And few in the candlelight

  Thought her too proud,

  For the house of the planter

  Is known by the trees.

  Men that had seen her

  Drank deep and were silent,

  The women were speaking

  Wherever she went –

  As a bell that is rung

  Or a wonder told shyly,

  And O she was the Sunday

  In every week.

  The Straying Student

  On a holy day when sails were blowing southward,

  A bishop sang the Mass at Inishmore,

  Men took one side, their wives were on the other

  But I heard the woman coming from the shore:

  And wild in despair my parents cried aloud

  For they saw the vision draw me to the doorway.

  Long had she lived in Rome when Popes were bad,

  The wealth of every age she makes her own,

  Yet smiled on me in eager admiration,

  And for a summer taught me all I know,

  Banishing shame with her great laugh that rang

  As if a pillar caught it back alone.

  I learned the prouder counsel of her throat,

  My mind was growing bold as light in Greece;

  And when in sleep her stirring limbs were shown,

  I blessed the noonday rock that knew no tree:

  And for an hour the mountain was her throne,

  Although her eyes were bright with mockery.

  They say I was sent back from Salamanca

  And failed in logic, but I wrote her praise

  Nine times upon a college wall in France.

  She laid her hand at darkfall on my page

  That I might read the heavens in a glance

  And I knew every star the Moors have named.

  Awake or in my sleep, I have no peace now,

  Before the ball is struck, my breath has gone,

  And yet I tremble lest she may deceive me

  And leave me in this land, where every woman’s son

  Must carry his own coffin and believe,

  In dread, all that the clergy teach the young.

  Penal Law

  Burn Ovid with the rest. Lovers will find

  A hedge-school for themselves and learn by heart

  All that the clergy banish from the mind,

  When hands are joined and head bows in the dark.

  Martha Blake at Fifty-one

  Early, each morning, Martha Blake

  Walked, angeling the road,

  To Mass in the Church of the Three Patrons.

  Sanctuary lamp glowed

  And the clerk halo’ed the candles

  On the High Altar. She knelt

  Illumined. In gold-hemmed alb,

  The priest intoned. Wax melted.

  Waiting for daily Communion, bowed head

  At rail, she hears a murmur.

  Latin is near. In a sweet cloud

  That cherub’d, all occurred.

  The voice went by. To her pure thought,

  Body was a distress

  And soul, a sigh. Behind her denture,

  Love lay, a helplessness.

  Then, slowly walking after Mass

  Down Rathgar Road, she took out

  Her Yale key, put a match to gas-ring,

  Half filled a saucepan, cooked

  A fresh egg light
ly, with tea, brown bread,

  Soon, taking off her blouse

  And skirt, she rested, pressing the Crown

  Of Thorns until she drowsed.

  In her black hat, stockings, she passed

  Nylons to a nearby shop

  And purchased, daily, with downcast eyes,

  Fillet of steak or a chop.

  She simmered it on a low jet,

  Having a poor appetite,

  Yet never for an hour felt better

  From dilatation, tightness.

  She suffered from dropped stomach, heartburn

  Scalding, water-brash

  And when she brought her wind up, turning

  Red with the weight of mashed

  Potato, mint could not relieve her.

  In vain her many belches,

  For all below was swelling, heaving

  Wamble, gurgle, squelch.

  She lay on the sofa with legs up,

  A decade on her lip,

  At four o’clock, taking a cup

  Of lukewarm water, sip

  By sip, but still her daily food

  Repeated and the bile

  Tormented her. In a blue hood,

  The Virgin sadly smiled.

  When she looked up, the Saviour showed

  His Heart, daggered with flame

  And, from the mantle-shelf, St Joseph

  Bent, disapproving. Vainly

  She prayed, for in the whatnot corner,

  The new Pope was frowning. Night

  And day, dull pain, as in her corns,

  Recounted every bite.

  She thought of St Teresa, floating

  On motes of a sunbeam,

  Carmelite with scatterful robes,

  Surrounded by demons,

  Small black boys in their skin. She gaped

  At Hell: a muddy passage

  That led to nothing, queer in shape,

  A cupboard closely fastened.

  Sometimes, the walls of the parlour

  Would fade away. No plod

  Of feet, rattle of van, in Garville

  Road. Soul now gone abroad

  Where saints, like medieval serfs,

  Had laboured. Great sun-flower shone.

  Our Lady’s Chapel was borne by seraphs,

  Three leagues beyond Ancona.

  High towns of Italy, the plain

  Of France, were known to Martha

  As she read in a holy book. The sky-blaze

  Nooned at Padua,

  Marble grotto of Bernadette.

  Rose-scatterers. New saints

  In tropical Africa where the tsetse

  Fly probes, the forest taints.

  Teresa had heard the Lutherans

  Howling on red-hot spit,

  And grill, men who had searched for truth

  Alone in Holy Writ.

  So Martha, fearful of flame lashing

  Those heretics, each instant,

  Never dealt in the haberdashery

  Shop, owned by two Protestants.

  In ambush of night, an angel wounded

  The Spaniard to the heart

  With iron tip on fire. Swooning

  With pain and bliss as a dart

  Moved up and down within her bowels

  Quicker, quicker, each cell

  Sweating as if rubbed up with towels,

  Her spirit rose and fell.

  St John of the Cross, her friend, in prison

  Awaits the bridal night,

  Paler than lilies, his wizened skin

  Flowers. In fifths of flight,

  Senses beyond seraphic thought,

  In that divinest clasp,

  Enfolding of kisses that cauterize,

  Yield to the soul-spasm.

  Cunning in body had come to hate

  All this and stirred by mischief

  Haled Martha from heaven. Heart palpitates

  And terror in her stiffens.

  Heart misses one beat, two … flutters … stops.

  Her ears are full of sound.

  Half fainting, she stares at the grandfather clock

  As if it were overwound.

  The fit had come. Ill-natured flesh

  Despised her soul. No bending

  Could ease rib. Around her heart, pressure

  Of wind grew worse. Again,

  Again, armchaired without relief,

  She eructated, phelgm

  In mouth, forgot the woe, the grief,

  Foretold at Bethlehem.

  Tired of the same faces, side-altars,

  She went to the Carmelite Church

  At Johnson’s Court, confessed her faults,

  There, once a week, purchased

  Tea, butter in Chatham St. The pond

  In St Stephen’s Green was grand.

  She watched the seagulls, ducks, black swan,

  Went home by the 15 tram.

  Her beads in hand, Martha became

  A member of the Third Order,

  Saved from long purgatorial pain,

  Brown habit and white cord

  Her own when cerges had been lit

  Around her coffin. She got

  Ninety-five pounds on loan for her bit

  Of clay in the common plot.

  Often she thought of a quiet sick-ward,

  Nuns, with delicious ways,

  Consoling the miserable: quick

  Tea, toast on trays. Wishing

  To rid themselves of her, kind neighbours

  Sent for the ambulance,

  Before her brother and sister could hurry

  To help her. Big gate clanged.

  No medical examination

  For the new patient. Doctor

  Had gone to Cork on holidays.

  Telephone sprang. Hall-lock

  Proclaimed the quarters. Clatter of heels

  On tiles. Corridor, ward,

  A-whirr with the electric cleaner,

  The creak of window cord.

  She could not sleep at night. Feeble

  And old, two women raved

  And cried to God. She held her beads.

  O how could she be saved?

  The hospital had this and that rule.

  Day-chill unshuttered. Nun, with

  Thermometer in reticule,

  Went by. The women mumbled.

  Mother Superior believed

  That she was obstinate, self-willed.

  Sisters ignored her, hands-in-sleeves,

  Beside a pantry shelf

  Or counting pillow-case, soiled sheet.

  They gave her purgatives.

  Soul-less, she tottered to the toilet.

  Only her body lived.

  Wasted by colitis, refused

  The daily sacrament

  By regulation, forbidden use

  Of bed-pan, when meals were sent up,

  Behind a screen, she lay, shivering,

  Unable to eat. The soup

  Was greasy, mutton, beef or liver,

  Cold. Kitchen has no scruples.

  The Nuns had let the field in front

  As an Amusement Park,

  Merry-go-round, a noisy month, all

  Heltering-skeltering at darkfall,

  Mechanical music, dipper, hold-tights,

  Rifle-crack, crash of dodgems.

  The ward, godless with shadow, lights,

  How could she pray to God?

  Unpitied, wasting with diarrhea

  And the constant strain,

  Poor Child of Mary with one idea,

  She ruptured a small vein,

  Bled inwardly to jazz. No priest

  Came. She had been anointed

  Two days before, yet knew no peace:

  Her last breath, disappointed.

  A Strong Wind

  All day a strong wind blew

  Across the green and brown from Kerry.

  The leaves hurrying, two

  By three, over the road, collected

  In chattering groups. New ber
ry

  Dipped with old branch. Careful insects

  Flew low behind their hedges.

  Held back by her pretty petticoat,

  Butterfly struggled. A bit of

  Paper, on which a schoolgirl had written

  ‘Máire loves Jimmy’, jumped up

  Into a tree. Tapping in haste,

  The wind was telegraphing, hundreds

  Of miles. All Ireland raced.

  New Liberty Hall

  Higher than county lark

  Can fly, a speck that sings,

  Sixteen-floored Liberty Hall

  Goes up through scaffoldings

  In memory of Larkin,

  Shot Connolly. With cap

  On simple head, hallmark

  Of sweat, new capitalists

  Rent out expensive suites

  Of glassier offices,

  Babel’d above our streets,

  The unemployed may scoff, but

  Workers must skimp and scrape

  To own so fine a skyscraper,

  Beyond the dream of Gandon,

  Shaming the Custom House

  The giant crane, the gantries.

  Labour is now accustomed

  To higher living. Railing

  Is gone that I leaned against

  To watch that figure, tall and lean,

  Jim Larkin, shouting, railing.

  Why should he give a damn

  That day for English grammar,

  Arm-waving, eloquent?

  On top, a green pagoda

  Has glorified cement,

  Umbrella’d the sun. Go, da,

  And shiver in your tenement.

  F. R. HIGGINS

  (1896–1941)

  Song for the Clatter-bones

  God rest that Jewy woman,

  Queen Jezebel, the bitch

  Who peeled the clothes from her shoulder-bones

  Down to her spent teats

  As she stretched out of the window

  Among the geraniums, where

  She chaffed and laughed like one half daft

  Titivating her painted hair –

  King Jehu he drove to her,

  She tipped him a fancy beck;

  But he from his knacky side-car spoke,

  ‘Who’ll break that dewlapped neck?’

  And so she was thrown from the window;

  Like Lucifer she fell

  Beneath the feet of the horses and they beat

  The light out of Jezebel.

  That corpse wasn’t planted in clover;

  Ah, nothing of her was found

  Save those grey bones that Hare-foot Mike

  Gave me for their lovely sound;