Monday, March 24, 2014
The Ides of March, 2014
Wouldn’t it take a certain arrogance or pride to hold a party on the Ides of March?
Or, for that matter, to attend one?
Are we too busy to heed the signs? Too unaware of portentous omens? Too lacking in simple humility?
If this were a Greek tragedy, the gods would certainly punish such hubris:
-there’d be salmonella in the artichoke dip
-the keg would run flat…or worse yet, dry
-Jerry’s falsetto during “O, Danny Boy” would shatter our windshields
-the stage, at the end of Act V, would be littered with corpses
But, then again, it is the feast of St. Patrick,
And the Irish have been beating the odds for centuries.
They majored in tragedy, minored in hard knocks.
And as a wiser poet than I once said, “I’d walk a longish road, through drear, hard rain, and fog for a well-pulled pint.”
Who am I, a New England Jew, to argue?
Was it Yates? Or maybe Brendan Behan?
Either way, it was another scribe – a Brit – who coined for us “the Ides of March.”
I first read it in the tenth-grade English class of Mr. Wills,
Who, if the bathroom stall near the library was correct, “eats pills.”
In Act I, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar, a Soothsayer – Yes, a Soothsayer; Rome was lousy with them in those days – cries, “Beware the Ides of March!”
He says it three times before exiting stage right, and we all know that bud luck runs in threes, like the number of leaves found on the much more common yet luck-less clover.
Caesar, stubborn as an Irish mule, pays no heed to the Soothsayer’s warnings.
But, this is high drama, and there are, to be sure, other signs.
Looking out on a tumultuous storm, here is Casca, a conspirator, talking to Cicero, a Senator, in Act I, Scene 3:
“Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.”
And, as if that’s not enough, here’s Calpurnia (Wife of Caesar) recounting her dream in Act II, Scene 2:
“Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.”
So, let’s recount:
The heavens are raining fire and blood; ghosts and the undead are strolling about; Lions are whelping in the town square,
And what does Caesar do?
Ignores it all. He might just as well have gone to a St. Patrick’s Day party for all he cared for such superstitions.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once,” he smugly answers his spouse.
“Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”
You can say that again. Sir Julius gets it in the back nine times at the start of Act III.
The moral, as my own Calpurnia would say: Always listen to the woman.
But here I stand, despite the Soothsayer’s prophesy, on the Ides of March.
What’s a Roman with an omen to do?
I could cite my Old Man, a voluntary poet in his own right, when he heard me practicing Marc Anthony’s soliloquy for Mr. Wills’ English class;
Quoth me Da: “He who drinks beer, Shakespeare.”
--Steve Hodin
Or, for that matter, to attend one?
Are we too busy to heed the signs? Too unaware of portentous omens? Too lacking in simple humility?
If this were a Greek tragedy, the gods would certainly punish such hubris:
-there’d be salmonella in the artichoke dip
-the keg would run flat…or worse yet, dry
-Jerry’s falsetto during “O, Danny Boy” would shatter our windshields
-the stage, at the end of Act V, would be littered with corpses
But, then again, it is the feast of St. Patrick,
And the Irish have been beating the odds for centuries.
They majored in tragedy, minored in hard knocks.
And as a wiser poet than I once said, “I’d walk a longish road, through drear, hard rain, and fog for a well-pulled pint.”
Who am I, a New England Jew, to argue?
Was it Yates? Or maybe Brendan Behan?
Either way, it was another scribe – a Brit – who coined for us “the Ides of March.”
I first read it in the tenth-grade English class of Mr. Wills,
Who, if the bathroom stall near the library was correct, “eats pills.”
In Act I, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar, a Soothsayer – Yes, a Soothsayer; Rome was lousy with them in those days – cries, “Beware the Ides of March!”
He says it three times before exiting stage right, and we all know that bud luck runs in threes, like the number of leaves found on the much more common yet luck-less clover.
Caesar, stubborn as an Irish mule, pays no heed to the Soothsayer’s warnings.
But, this is high drama, and there are, to be sure, other signs.
Looking out on a tumultuous storm, here is Casca, a conspirator, talking to Cicero, a Senator, in Act I, Scene 3:
“Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.”
And, as if that’s not enough, here’s Calpurnia (Wife of Caesar) recounting her dream in Act II, Scene 2:
“Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.”
So, let’s recount:
The heavens are raining fire and blood; ghosts and the undead are strolling about; Lions are whelping in the town square,
And what does Caesar do?
Ignores it all. He might just as well have gone to a St. Patrick’s Day party for all he cared for such superstitions.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once,” he smugly answers his spouse.
“Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”
You can say that again. Sir Julius gets it in the back nine times at the start of Act III.
The moral, as my own Calpurnia would say: Always listen to the woman.
But here I stand, despite the Soothsayer’s prophesy, on the Ides of March.
What’s a Roman with an omen to do?
I could cite my Old Man, a voluntary poet in his own right, when he heard me practicing Marc Anthony’s soliloquy for Mr. Wills’ English class;
Quoth me Da: “He who drinks beer, Shakespeare.”
--Steve Hodin
Field of Vision
I remember this woman who sat for years
In a wheelchair, looking staight ahead
Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing at the far end of the lane.
Straight out past the TV in the corner,
The stunted, agitated howthorn bush,
The same small calves with their backs to wind and
rain,
The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.
She was steadfast as the big window itself.
Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair.
She never lamented once and she never
Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.
Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate --
One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whiewashed pillars, where you could see
Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distincly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawwn in by what barred the way.
-- Seamus Heaney
In a wheelchair, looking staight ahead
Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing at the far end of the lane.
Straight out past the TV in the corner,
The stunted, agitated howthorn bush,
The same small calves with their backs to wind and
rain,
The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.
She was steadfast as the big window itself.
Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair.
She never lamented once and she never
Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.
Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate --
One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whiewashed pillars, where you could see
Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distincly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawwn in by what barred the way.
-- Seamus Heaney
The Season of Too-Many-Pockets
I frisk myself, like a beat cop on a punk thief.
"Where's that wallet, you bugger? That phone, those keys?"
I maintain my innocence but I still can't find my stuff.
I'm tellin' you
It's not me that's the felon, it's this damned winter-
It's stolen my breath
It's robbed me of my now-meager dignity,
As the nose runs and the eyes stream.
It mugs me as I struggle uphill among the office towers
Assaulting me with gales thrown in my face.
It trips me up on black ice and brittle bricks of last week's slush.
It's frigid, it's snizzling, it's offering up that "wintry mix" that sounds
so much like a trendy new cocktail
But that's really only a misery-to-go.
Damn it...
I've filed a complaint you know
But I expect it won't be heard for a few more weeks.
-- Louise Outler
"Where's that wallet, you bugger? That phone, those keys?"
I maintain my innocence but I still can't find my stuff.
I'm tellin' you
It's not me that's the felon, it's this damned winter-
It's stolen my breath
It's robbed me of my now-meager dignity,
As the nose runs and the eyes stream.
It mugs me as I struggle uphill among the office towers
Assaulting me with gales thrown in my face.
It trips me up on black ice and brittle bricks of last week's slush.
It's frigid, it's snizzling, it's offering up that "wintry mix" that sounds
so much like a trendy new cocktail
But that's really only a misery-to-go.
Damn it...
I've filed a complaint you know
But I expect it won't be heard for a few more weeks.
-- Louise Outler
Get Up, Please
The two musicians pour forth their souls abroad
in such an ecstasy as to charm the audience
like none I’ve ever seen before, and when
they finish, they rise and hug each other,
and then the tabla player bends down
and touches the feet of the santoor player in an obvious gesture
of respect, but what does it mean? I don’t find out
until the next day at the Econolodge in Tifton, GA,
where I stop on my way home after the concert
and ask Mrs. Patel, the owner, if she has ever heard
of these two musicians or knows
anything about the tabla and the santoor and especially the latter,
which looks like the love child of a typewriter
and a hammered dulcimer only with a lot of extra wires
and tuning posts, and she doesn’t seem to understand
my questions, though when I ask her about one person touching
the other’s feet and then bend down
to show her, she lights up and says, "It means he thinks the other
is a god. My children do this before they go off
to school in the morning, as though to say, 'Mummy,
you are a god to us,’" and I look at her
for a second and then surprise us both when I say, "Oh, Mrs. Patel!"
and burst into tears, because I think,
first, of my own dead parents and then of little Lakshmi and Padma
Patel going off to their classes in Tift County schools,
the one a second-grader who is studying homophones
(“I see the sea”) and the other of whom is in the fourth
grade, where she must master long division with
its cruel insistence on numbers lined
up under one another with exacting precision and then crawling
toward the page’s bottom as you, the divider, subtract
and divide again and again, all the while recording
on the top line an answer that grows increasingly
lengthy as you fret and chew the tip of your pencil
and persevere, though before they grab
their books and lunch boxes and pile onto the bus, they take time
to touch Mrs. Patel’s feet and Mr. Patel’s as well,
assuming there is such a person. Later my friend
Avni tells me you touch the feet of your elders
to respect the distance they have traveled
and the earth they have touched, and you
say “namaste”not because you take yoga at that little place
on the truck route between the t-shirt store
and the strip club but because it means “I bow
to the light within you,” and often the people being
bowed to will stoop down and collect you as if to say
"You too are made of the same light!"
Reader, if your parents are alive, think of them now, of all the gods
whose feet you never touched or touched enough.
And if not your parents, then someone else.
You know someone like this, right? Someone who belongs
to the "mighty dead," as Keats called them.
Don’t you wish that person were here now
so you could touch their feet and whisper, "You are my god"?
I can’t imagine Keats saying, “You too are made
of the same light,” though I can see him saying,
as he did to Fanny Brawne, “I have been astonished
that Men could die Martyrs for religion—I have
shudder'd at it—I shudder no more—I could
be martyr'd for my Religion—Love is my religion—I could die for that—
I could die for you.” My own feet have touched
the earth nearly three times as long as Keats’s did,
and I’m hardly the oldest person
I know. So let this poem brush across the feet of anyone
who reads it. Poetry is
my religion—well, I wouldn’t die for it. I’d live for it, though.
-- David Kirby
in such an ecstasy as to charm the audience
like none I’ve ever seen before, and when
they finish, they rise and hug each other,
and then the tabla player bends down
and touches the feet of the santoor player in an obvious gesture
of respect, but what does it mean? I don’t find out
until the next day at the Econolodge in Tifton, GA,
where I stop on my way home after the concert
and ask Mrs. Patel, the owner, if she has ever heard
of these two musicians or knows
anything about the tabla and the santoor and especially the latter,
which looks like the love child of a typewriter
and a hammered dulcimer only with a lot of extra wires
and tuning posts, and she doesn’t seem to understand
my questions, though when I ask her about one person touching
the other’s feet and then bend down
to show her, she lights up and says, "It means he thinks the other
is a god. My children do this before they go off
to school in the morning, as though to say, 'Mummy,
you are a god to us,’" and I look at her
for a second and then surprise us both when I say, "Oh, Mrs. Patel!"
and burst into tears, because I think,
first, of my own dead parents and then of little Lakshmi and Padma
Patel going off to their classes in Tift County schools,
the one a second-grader who is studying homophones
(“I see the sea”) and the other of whom is in the fourth
grade, where she must master long division with
its cruel insistence on numbers lined
up under one another with exacting precision and then crawling
toward the page’s bottom as you, the divider, subtract
and divide again and again, all the while recording
on the top line an answer that grows increasingly
lengthy as you fret and chew the tip of your pencil
and persevere, though before they grab
their books and lunch boxes and pile onto the bus, they take time
to touch Mrs. Patel’s feet and Mr. Patel’s as well,
assuming there is such a person. Later my friend
Avni tells me you touch the feet of your elders
to respect the distance they have traveled
and the earth they have touched, and you
say “namaste”not because you take yoga at that little place
on the truck route between the t-shirt store
and the strip club but because it means “I bow
to the light within you,” and often the people being
bowed to will stoop down and collect you as if to say
"You too are made of the same light!"
Reader, if your parents are alive, think of them now, of all the gods
whose feet you never touched or touched enough.
And if not your parents, then someone else.
You know someone like this, right? Someone who belongs
to the "mighty dead," as Keats called them.
Don’t you wish that person were here now
so you could touch their feet and whisper, "You are my god"?
I can’t imagine Keats saying, “You too are made
of the same light,” though I can see him saying,
as he did to Fanny Brawne, “I have been astonished
that Men could die Martyrs for religion—I have
shudder'd at it—I shudder no more—I could
be martyr'd for my Religion—Love is my religion—I could die for that—
I could die for you.” My own feet have touched
the earth nearly three times as long as Keats’s did,
and I’m hardly the oldest person
I know. So let this poem brush across the feet of anyone
who reads it. Poetry is
my religion—well, I wouldn’t die for it. I’d live for it, though.
-- David Kirby
Thursday, March 06, 2014
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
A(nother) Great Poetry Event! (a little something for the off-season)
Young People’s Open Mic
Students from grades 6 to 12
Saturday, October 19
7– 9pm
Sign-ups begin at 6:30pm
Poems in all languages welcome.
Family Friendly –Please make sure content and language is for all ages
At the Roslindale Branch Library
4246 Washington Street, Roslindale, MA
Light refreshments served
Sponsored by the Friends of Roslindale Branch Library
Street parking available
Questions? Contact roslindalelibraryfriends@gmail.com
Students from grades 6 to 12
Saturday, October 19
7– 9pm
Sign-ups begin at 6:30pm
Poems in all languages welcome.
Family Friendly –Please make sure content and language is for all ages
At the Roslindale Branch Library
4246 Washington Street, Roslindale, MA
Light refreshments served
Sponsored by the Friends of Roslindale Branch Library
Street parking available
Questions? Contact roslindalelibraryfriends@gmail.com
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Untitled/For MF
Untitled/For MF
Each time
you answer
I am grateful
in a way
that make poets
cringe--
trite
over-the-top
metaphors
and hail marys
and whatever
jews and buddhists say
in thanks
when a miracle
has occurred.
Maybe
you really do know
what it is like
to shadow box…
to tiptoe
amongst
land mines
laid down so long ago
that the parties no longer
remember the war
yet each soft step
is one
toward freedom.
And so I tread
first with a quiet prayer
and now,
as you have taught me,
with a breath.
--Nancy Marks
Each time
you answer
I am grateful
in a way
that make poets
cringe--
trite
over-the-top
metaphors
and hail marys
and whatever
jews and buddhists say
in thanks
when a miracle
has occurred.
Maybe
you really do know
what it is like
to shadow box…
to tiptoe
amongst
land mines
laid down so long ago
that the parties no longer
remember the war
yet each soft step
is one
toward freedom.
And so I tread
first with a quiet prayer
and now,
as you have taught me,
with a breath.
--Nancy Marks
Monday, April 08, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Time for Poetry & Stout
When the winter sheds its scaly skin
And slinks up to the hilltop once again
We gather sticks and horns with it to clout
Then it is the time for poetry and stout
And as the warming sun the snow does slice
And the slithering season recedes with melting ice
And manic love begins to stretch and sprout
Then it is the time for poetry and stout
And when the children with their drums and packs
Parade along yale terrace to and back
As a rite of spring, establishing the serpentine route
Then it is the time for poetry and stout
So look not for invitations to partake
But gather up your poems to kill the snake
And herald glorious spring with whisper, song or shout
For now it is the time for poetry and stout
-- Michael O'Connor
And slinks up to the hilltop once again
We gather sticks and horns with it to clout
Then it is the time for poetry and stout
And as the warming sun the snow does slice
And the slithering season recedes with melting ice
And manic love begins to stretch and sprout
Then it is the time for poetry and stout
And when the children with their drums and packs
Parade along yale terrace to and back
As a rite of spring, establishing the serpentine route
Then it is the time for poetry and stout
So look not for invitations to partake
But gather up your poems to kill the snake
And herald glorious spring with whisper, song or shout
For now it is the time for poetry and stout
-- Michael O'Connor
Friday, March 22, 2013
My Heart's In The Highlands
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
-- Robert Burns
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
-- Robert Burns
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
On the Beach at Night
N the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
-- Walt Whitman
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
-- Walt Whitman
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
-- Robert Hayden
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
-- Robert Hayden
Friday, April 27, 2012
The O'Connors' St. Patricks
All those beautiful dear faces
Seen but once a year on Yale Terrace
A magic connection everywhere you turn
Poetry and music in the air
On this auspicious night
A James Joycean William Butler Yeatsian
Movie of hospitality so grand
That in this fine house
Instills in us, and by their leave
A lust for spring and all good things
Profound and indeed, so merry
The presence of the Leprechaun and
The wee Faire
The splendid declamation of Young Liam
Of "Emmet at the Dock"
Everyone present feeling
As to their Irish stock
II
The songs so grand heard nowhere else
In all the land
Played sublime, intricate and well
By the brave musicians of the band
A fitting prelude to the Earth
Tilting on its axis toward the Sun
The Minstrel Boy to the War is Gone
And a tribute to what the bloody battles cost
For Freedom a century ago
That our Ancestors fought and won.
Seen but once a year on Yale Terrace
A magic connection everywhere you turn
Poetry and music in the air
On this auspicious night
A James Joycean William Butler Yeatsian
Movie of hospitality so grand
That in this fine house
Instills in us, and by their leave
A lust for spring and all good things
Profound and indeed, so merry
The presence of the Leprechaun and
The wee Faire
The splendid declamation of Young Liam
Of "Emmet at the Dock"
Everyone present feeling
As to their Irish stock
II
The songs so grand heard nowhere else
In all the land
Played sublime, intricate and well
By the brave musicians of the band
A fitting prelude to the Earth
Tilting on its axis toward the Sun
The Minstrel Boy to the War is Gone
And a tribute to what the bloody battles cost
For Freedom a century ago
That our Ancestors fought and won.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Untitled
And God encapsulates us with His spirit before we were even born or thought of
sitting spirits
waiting to be sent down to the world
we were bathed with blessings and hope
and sent down into the sacks of our fathers
to be buried in the warm wombs of our mothers
and as we cycle through the stages
we prepare ourselves for release
but this weary globe is not what we expected
and our newly beating hearts are taken aback by the scene
the warmth we had in our soft cozy wombs
has been replaced by a chill
we become afraid and worried
"God, what is this?" we ask
"Just continue and you will see"
as our hearts continue to beat
and our form grows in size
we reach out again
for those of us that remember now
"Do not let yourself be eaten up by the illusions of this world, do you not remember your mission?"
and by this point we have forgotten
and our first instructions have become lost to us
and so our new journey is to find our mission again
and in desperation we go to places that are suppose to be of dedication to God
although our true education of him is better found alone
because the so called peace seekers may really be heat seekers
trying to suck up light from our souls
or maybe they are just as lost and confused as we are or more so
but still insist on advising us
and in our ignorance we continue to let them advise
when God has all the instructions we need
God is screaming our names
but we can not hear through all the chaos
all the voices of the people that claim to know
I dont believe in evil
but I do believe in lost
and they rather be lost in company than alone
if we quiet our waters
we will hear It speak
and will slowly be re-introduced to our forgotten mission
slowly as not to overwhelm us
because our trust and belief is not the same as it was in the womb
neither is our confidence
but instead of seeking him out we run away in disbelief
we stab and pound and murder ourselves
with foolishness, lust, greed, and shame
we take God's materials and create costumes of fake beauty
and inventions of fake power
and bombard ourselves with destruction
we hurt the people next to us and far away
we attack the ones we claim to love
but our sad confused minds have lost complete meaning of the word
always defined as a feeling when in reality it is action
we run further and further from God into the haze
the smoke
and are blinded and deafened
with false ideas of knowledge
Get quiet
like we were in the womb
when God was loud in our ears
the only voice we knew
we fear silence because of its truth
we dont really want to know how far we have strayed
but if we dont realize our distance, we can never go back
He is screaming our names
let the lusty smell of chaos go
some of us hear Him and it ignore it
to chase desire
then scream "whoa is me!" when they are gashed in the head with strife
and they then give up on a God that they never truly believed in
or make fake promises to listen next time
if we only shut our busy mouths and open our ears to Allah
listen for the silence in his voice
no need for long winded apologies or stories
He knows us and the distance of our hearts better than we will ever know ourselves
close your busy mouth and listen
no need for loud emotional rapture
or huge congregations that mix in folly with their truth
we were born with what we are looking for
no need to search the corners of the earth
we were born with what we are looking for
no need for the rituals of our fore fathers
or the lectures of men that are just like us
you were born with what you are looking for!
and have only forgotten
be quiet and still
pour a cool pitcher of hope into your souls cup
and hold on to those few glimmers of faith that you remember
that were given to us while sitting on heaven's ledge
hold them quietly close to you to grow
so that they become stars within you
endless as the ones you see in the nights sky
and you will be bathed again in It's Spirit
your faith unyeilding
your courage plentiful
deflecting the boulders of those that attack you
your unusual strength will amaze them
and urge them too...
to be silent
and ahh now
Our mission has been fulfilled
--Alicia Mooltrey
sitting spirits
waiting to be sent down to the world
we were bathed with blessings and hope
and sent down into the sacks of our fathers
to be buried in the warm wombs of our mothers
and as we cycle through the stages
we prepare ourselves for release
but this weary globe is not what we expected
and our newly beating hearts are taken aback by the scene
the warmth we had in our soft cozy wombs
has been replaced by a chill
we become afraid and worried
"God, what is this?" we ask
"Just continue and you will see"
as our hearts continue to beat
and our form grows in size
we reach out again
for those of us that remember now
"Do not let yourself be eaten up by the illusions of this world, do you not remember your mission?"
and by this point we have forgotten
and our first instructions have become lost to us
and so our new journey is to find our mission again
and in desperation we go to places that are suppose to be of dedication to God
although our true education of him is better found alone
because the so called peace seekers may really be heat seekers
trying to suck up light from our souls
or maybe they are just as lost and confused as we are or more so
but still insist on advising us
and in our ignorance we continue to let them advise
when God has all the instructions we need
God is screaming our names
but we can not hear through all the chaos
all the voices of the people that claim to know
I dont believe in evil
but I do believe in lost
and they rather be lost in company than alone
if we quiet our waters
we will hear It speak
and will slowly be re-introduced to our forgotten mission
slowly as not to overwhelm us
because our trust and belief is not the same as it was in the womb
neither is our confidence
but instead of seeking him out we run away in disbelief
we stab and pound and murder ourselves
with foolishness, lust, greed, and shame
we take God's materials and create costumes of fake beauty
and inventions of fake power
and bombard ourselves with destruction
we hurt the people next to us and far away
we attack the ones we claim to love
but our sad confused minds have lost complete meaning of the word
always defined as a feeling when in reality it is action
we run further and further from God into the haze
the smoke
and are blinded and deafened
with false ideas of knowledge
Get quiet
like we were in the womb
when God was loud in our ears
the only voice we knew
we fear silence because of its truth
we dont really want to know how far we have strayed
but if we dont realize our distance, we can never go back
He is screaming our names
let the lusty smell of chaos go
some of us hear Him and it ignore it
to chase desire
then scream "whoa is me!" when they are gashed in the head with strife
and they then give up on a God that they never truly believed in
or make fake promises to listen next time
if we only shut our busy mouths and open our ears to Allah
listen for the silence in his voice
no need for long winded apologies or stories
He knows us and the distance of our hearts better than we will ever know ourselves
close your busy mouth and listen
no need for loud emotional rapture
or huge congregations that mix in folly with their truth
we were born with what we are looking for
no need to search the corners of the earth
we were born with what we are looking for
no need for the rituals of our fore fathers
or the lectures of men that are just like us
you were born with what you are looking for!
and have only forgotten
be quiet and still
pour a cool pitcher of hope into your souls cup
and hold on to those few glimmers of faith that you remember
that were given to us while sitting on heaven's ledge
hold them quietly close to you to grow
so that they become stars within you
endless as the ones you see in the nights sky
and you will be bathed again in It's Spirit
your faith unyeilding
your courage plentiful
deflecting the boulders of those that attack you
your unusual strength will amaze them
and urge them too...
to be silent
and ahh now
Our mission has been fulfilled
--Alicia Mooltrey
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