Poetry

[johncorrigan]

John, partly in response to your kind words on Missing Persons, and if I may include Rob in that as well, I would like to offer a heroic little poem by your current favourite poet, proving, I think, the truth of Yevtushenko's assertion.

He does it time and time again, Padraig

Crime and Punishment


Paul Durcan The Laughter of Mothers 2007

That is great on so many fronts. Thanks.

[Lat-Literal]

Remembered Song

If time should come and steal my memories,
If you look in my eyes and cannot see,
If something takes away my yesterdays,
Play these my songs and know you're hearing me.

And if by chance I hear the melodies
The faithful sun may now and then break through
And I will feel the warmth that used to be
And in remembered song, remember you

Phil Elsworth

[johncorrigan]

Some of Raymond Carver's best poems are beautifully cinematic, in my opinion. Few are better than this minimal delight that could be a scene from a classic 70's movie.

An Afternoon

As he writes, without looking at the sea,
he feels the tip of his pen begin to tremble.
The tide is going out across the shingle.
But it isn't that. No,
it's because at that moment she chooses
to walk into the room without any clothes on.
Drowsy, not even sure where she is
for a moment. She waves the hair from her forehead.
Sits on the toilet with her eyes closed,
head down. Legs sprawled. He sees her
through the doorway. Maybe
she's remembering what happened that morning.
For after a time, she opens one eye and looks at him.
And sweetly smiles.

Raymond Carver

[Lat-Literal]

Some of Raymond Carver's best poems are beautifully cinematic, in my opinion. Few are better than this minimal delight that could be a scene from a classic 70's movie.

An Afternoon

As he writes, without looking at the sea,
he feels the tip of his pen begin to tremble.
The tide is going out across the shingle.
But it isn't that. No,
it's because at that moment she chooses
to walk into the room without any clothes on.
Drowsy, not even sure where she is
for a moment. She waves the hair from her forehead.
Sits on the toilet with her eyes closed,
head down. Legs sprawled. He sees her
through the doorway. Maybe
she's remembering what happened that morning.
For after a time, she opens one eye and looks at him.
And sweetly smiles.

Raymond Carver

That puts me in mind of this book that might have been better structured and wasn't loved by the critics but it does tend to leave long-lasting impressions on readers:

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Spring_Street_Summer.html?id=-FVqQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

(I know that I have mentioned this novel before but some of the old tunes are the best tunes)

[Padraig]

The First Dream


The wind is ghosting round the house tonight.
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

Billy Collins The Art of Drowning 1995

[Lat-Literal]

The First Dream


The wind is ghosting round the house tonight.
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.


except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

Billy Collins The Art of Drowning 1995

Ah yes.

Very good.

Is the opening line a little nod to MacGowan?

"As I walked down by the riverside
One evening in the spring
Heard a long gone song
From days gone by
Blown in on the great North wind

Though there is no lonesome corncrake's cry
Of sorrow and delight
You can hear the cars
And the shouts from bars
And the laughter and the fights

May the ghosts that howled
Round the house at night
Never keep you from your sleep
May they all sleep tight
Down in hell tonight
Or wherever they may be"

[johncorrigan]

Ah yes.

Very good.

Is the opening line a little nod to MacGowan?

"As I walked down by the riverside
One evening in the spring
Heard a long gone song
From days gone by
Blown in on the great North wind

Though there is no lonesome corncrake's cry
Of sorrow and delight
You can hear the cars
And the shouts from bars
And the laughter and the fights

May the ghosts that howled
Round the house at night
Never keep you from your sleep
May they all sleep tight
Down in hell tonight
Or wherever they may be"

That stands up really well without the musical accompaniment, Lat...though I never thought of the corncrake as being lonesome. The ones I heard out west earlier this month didn't bloody sound it in the middle of the night. (I can laugh now!).

[Lat-Literal]

That stands up really well without the musical accompaniment, Lat...though I never thought of the corncrake as being lonesome. The ones I heard out west earlier this month didn't bloody sound it in the middle of the night. (I can laugh now!).

The word "corncrake" was also in the Decemberists' "Word of the Day" series as it features in two of their songs.

You will see that contributor "Chimbley-Sweep" - and I can't tell you how long it took us to persuade my uncle that it is "chimney" - has similar concerns:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Decemberists/comments/227r35/decemberists_word_of_the_day_corncrake/

[johncorrigan]

The word "corncrake" was also in the Decemberists' "Word of the Day" series as it features in two of their songs.

You will see that contributor "Chimbley-Sweep" - and I can't tell you how long it took us to persuade my uncle that it is "chimney" - has similar concerns:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Decemberist...day_corncrake/

Inclined to agree with Mr Chimbley there, Lat. I love corncrakes as long as they're not raising merry hell outside of your window at night on a Hebridean isle. However I slightly disagree with him because they can wake you in the morning. They carry on with 'crex' into mid-morning. I have assumed for some time that the name comes from the sound they make in the long grass (crake would not be a bad description of it), but maybe crake is a type of bird...I suppose I should look it up. Looks like it is onomatopoeic, which makes sense. By the way, Lat, we've always been convinced that they throw their voice.

Call of the corncrake by Siobhán Campbell

There is a tip of forever

in the wait for the cut

when you fly low on rufous wings

and call out your court.

Crane-necked, we hear you

rattle through grass

hoping to mate before meadows

are sheared.

A line that might stop.

No crex comes back

before the machine

grinds in the gap.

What sight is right?

We hope to spy

while you scour the meadow,

high beak, high eye.

[Lat-Literal]

Inclined to agree with Mr Chimbley there, Lat. I love corncrakes as long as they're not raising merry hell outside of your window at night on a Hebridean isle. However I slightly disagree with him because they can wake you in the morning. They carry on with 'crex' into mid-morning. I have assumed for some time that the name comes from the sound they make in the long grass (crake would not be a bad description of it), but maybe crake is a type of bird...I suppose I should look it up. Looks like it is onomatopoeic, which makes sense. By the way, Lat, we've always been convinced that they throw their voice.

Call of the corncrake by Siobhán Campbell

There is a tip of forever

in the wait for the cut

when you fly low on rufous wings

and call out your court.

Crane-necked, we hear you

rattle through grass

hoping to mate before meadows

are sheared.

A line that might stop.

No crex comes back

before the machine

grinds in the gap.

What sight is right?

We hope to spy

while you scour the meadow,

high beak, high eye.

On reflection, I think the reference in "Lullaby of London" just might refer to the corncrake's substantial decline in the 1980s.

Perhaps it was often in the news at the time the relevant album "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" was released - 1987.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/species/casestudies/corncrake.aspx

Ah, it also perhaps alludes to Vincent Buckley because the timing here seems very right. "Nationalism we find in Buckley's "The All For Ireland League" (Lane and Clifford, 1987 : 49). And the theme of the land we find in his "On Hearing The First Corncrake" for example (Lane and Clifford, 1987 : 93)" - from "Identities in Irish Literature", Anne MacCarthy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Buckley

Now, what of the origins of the ghostly wind howling round the house? Joyce? Behan? Much of the Pogues' work echoed them.

[Padraig]

The Castle of Dromore

The October winds lament around
The castle of Dromore
Yet peace is in her lofty halls
My loving child astore
Though Autumn leaves may droop and die
A bud of spring are you
Sing hush-a-by loo,la-lo,la lan
sing hush-a-by loo la lo

Bring no ill will to hinder us
My helpless babe and me
Dread spirits of the Blackwater,
Clan Owen's wild banshee.
And Holy Mary pitying us
In Heaven for grace doth sue
Sing hush-a-by loo,la-lo,la lan
Sing hush-a-by loo la lo.

Take time to thrive my ray of hope
in the garden of Dromore
Take heed young eaglet
till thy wings are feathered fit to soar
a little rest and then the world
is full of work to do
sing hush-a-by loo,la-lo,la lan
sing hush-a-by loo la lo.

[Lat-Literal]

The Castle of Dromore

The October winds lament around
The castle of Dromore
Yet peace is in her lofty halls
My loving child astore
Though Autumn leaves may droop and die
A bud of spring are you
Sing hush-a-by loo,la-lo,la lan
sing hush-a-by loo la lo

Bring no ill will to hinder us
My helpless babe and me
Dread spirits of the Blackwater,
Clan Owen's wild banshee.
And Holy Mary pitying us
In Heaven for grace doth sue
Sing hush-a-by loo,la-lo,la lan
Sing hush-a-by loo la lo.

Take time to thrive my ray of hope
in the garden of Dromore
Take heed young eaglet
till thy wings are feathered fit to soar
a little rest and then the world
is full of work to do
sing hush-a-by loo,la-lo,la lan
sing hush-a-by loo la lo.

Yes - down by Blackwaterside perhaps. Joyce's "Winds of May" are not for here although they are timely. But we do have Yeats's "The Wind Among The Reeds", Sterne's "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." and from Edna O'Brien's "House of Splendid Isolation" - 'History is everywhere. I hear messages in the wind and in the passing of the wind.' Whether any of this captures the essence of a building and the wind as a ghost I am not sure. My ears hear it in "The Auld Triangle" - the atmosphere of it if not specific words.

[vinteuil]

.

A Glimpse

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]


[ ... this was the pome read by the best man at my stepdaughter's wedding a couple of weeks back.]

.

[vinteuil]

.


The Emperor of Ice-Cream


Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Wallace Stevens [1879-1955]

[johncorrigan]

.


The Emperor of Ice-Cream


Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Wallace Stevens [1879-1955]

Thank you for that, vinteuil. I was so confused by the 2nd last line of stanza 1 (thought it might be a typo) that I went looking for some explanation and very much enjoyed reading more about the background to this rather fascinating piece.