January 2002
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A summer at Maynooth

for V
 

Time passed, like the mill wheel turning on slow water:
as each long summer afternoon, 
we strolled along the banks of the Grand Canal, 
were we braved our first, deliberate kiss, 
and saw, on the grape-green waters, 
our first swans, eloquently, gracefully float by 
on a stream of the imagination 
that knows no words, no sounds. Pure joy. 


Afraid
 

One day, Brendan, you will ask me,
 'Why did you write about personal themes 
and not the troubles raging around you? 
Were you afraid da?' And I will reply, 
'Yes, son, I was. I was afraid my poems 
would incite men to kill. Afraid my words 
would not heal. And most of all son, afraid
I would not be alive to answer your questions.


Curb stones
 

I

Painted on curbs 
on either end 

of the main street 
our tribal marks 

clearly define 
territory. 

Up the far end 
red, white and blue. 

Up the other 
green white and gold.

Separating 
the borders, 

the common ground - 
business and craic, 

pints at The Pot
cream tea at Toffs

… …

'We're proud to show 
pride in our flag!' 

No Surrender!
Our day will come!
… …

'If they'd only 
spend as much time 

decorating 
their own houses.' 
 
 

II

Pissed on puked on 
at closing time

spat on shat on 
on market day 

tramped on stamped on
our peeling curbs

our precious flags
desecrated. 


Good Friday 1998

I

All day and all 
through the long night
into Good Friday,

our hearts rose,
then sunk…
as we hung 

on every word 
of each 
coded newsflash, 

like anxious parents waiting 
for the surgeon to say 
‘The child will be all right.'

That Thursday and Friday
Everybody held 
his breathe and prayed.
 

II

Spring sun shone 
on our backs, 
snow showers 
in the small hours

and bitter winds 
of Belfast Lough.
The weather spoke 
our hopes, our fears.

When dawn broke 
rusty nails still 
crucified our souls. 

But by late afternoon 
we rose 
from the table, 

speaking as one, 
our quarrels 
dissolving in words

a peace born. 

15.4.1998


Famine

Dragging himself up 
from the dirt,
his frail carcass scrapes 
against bark.

Splinters pack his gut,
as he stretches out
for a worm, 
an egg, a grub...

A cold wind blows.
Dislodged like a nest, 
empty and brittle and dry,

he falls to the dust.
A relic of our response.


Farewell

On my return home from waving you off 
at Dublin airport, I sat, head bowed 
over a map of the Pacific, 
tears drowning the Island 
you returned home to for good.


Horizon

His horizons were always 
a stone's throw away: 
intimate, secure, 
comforting. 

At first, a thin bar 
of widening light, 
as the nursery door 
slowly opened. 

Next, a high wall 
and a tall fence 
around the house, 
kept Atlantic gales 

and wild dogs at bay.
Now, were drumlins 
huddle together, 
he has built himself, 

out of shyness, 
a house among trees.


Mo ghra thu*

To Eileen Keenan.
 

'I nearly said I love you.'
The sheer sadness of holding back, 

of putting off 
                       until the next time, 
and then there is no time, scares me.

Mmm...Mmm…Mmm 
Great. 'Mummy-'

Mmm…Mmmmm…Mummy…
Go on your doing well. 

Mummy…
Powerful.

Mummy…
Good man.

Mummy…I…I
Yes?

Mummy I love…
Yes?

Mummy I love you.
Brilliant! Bloody Brilliant!
 

Gaelic: Mo ghra thu / I love you.


Martha

She walks with a calm importance 
along the scraggy lanes seeing 
with the painter's eye and hearing 
with the musician's ear the land 
brimming with the handprints of God. 
With the reek of cow dung from her bare feet 
And the wind whistling through her fire-red hair
She has no need to flirt with an imagined land.


On the road to Tir na nOg

After Alexander Blok
 

Oh, if you only knew, children,
the warmth and glow  of the days to come
as we follow the road to Tir na nOg.

And, if you only knew, children,
the cold and gloom of the days gone by
you'll never stray off the road to Tir na nOg.


A Recorder bird's lament

Poets praise our musical species.
But not one will praise me. 
I was born with a defect. 
I have parrot in my blood.
The only songs I can sing 
are the sounds I hear 
from the big house below.

There, three spinsters squeal and squeak,
like demented hags demanding 
to be heard, and I am forced
to broadcast their screeching racket.

St Francis of Assisi, 
St Kevin of the Blackbird
I beseech you 
intercede on my behalf
teach them to produce softer sounds
or better still, bless them 
with the gift of knowing 
when to shut their beaks.


28 OCTOBER 1996

It was one of those fierce blustery days
When strong winds vigorously, combed the trees.
Powerful weather for putting out the dog 
to get rid of fleas.

Warm evenings saw Mrs McKenna, 
her breasts hung over the half door 
chatting away to passer-by.

Winter evenings at McKenna's 

saw a back door ajar, a frisky fiddler,
stories and tunes rising
from the sweating huddle round the hearth. 

And afterwards, in the small hours, 
neighbours, farm hands, the parish priest 
helping each other stagger home.

But all that changed with the troubles.


Uncle Jimmy

Deathday Friday 8 August 1998

When Uncle Jimmy, God rest his soul, died 
at home in Armagh, we were moving house 
to Suffolk. We couldn't settle that first night. 
But early next morning baby Brendan 
discovered the new back garden
had twice the room for tearing round. 
So now he's fine. 

                             My brother Mick and I 
traveled home for the burial.
'It was a great day for a funeral.'
The sun shone on our backs and a gentle breeze 
eased our climb up the graveyard hill.
All we could think or talk about was poor Jimmy …

As we stood at the grave and wept
something beckoned me forward not back 
beyond Father Peter leading the prayers,
beyond Aunt Irene and Mummy crying, 
beyond Kevin and Uncle Oliver 
lowering Jimmy to his final rest, 
to my nephews and nieces and cousins, 
and Brendan playing in the near-field.
The young ones who had not been born 
the last time we buried a Murphy-Keenan.
 


(c) Paul Keenan.  All Rights Reserved.