Post on 28-Nov-2014
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Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Nanny's Day at the Hag's Playground.
Up the road to the Hag's PlaygroundThe Vision gets you first, before the sound
It is strewn: Pine needles and tree fruitsA jellied snake.A pink lolly , bitten through.
The canopy of trees bend from the road,unaware of the muted geometrical patterns
Patterning the ground.The trees bend inFrom the road over the rainy soaked ground
Bright mechanical marionettes emptied ontoThe rainy moonwashed ground
Leftovers from hard play and joy onNanny's day at the Hag's Playground.
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Descent From Croagh Patrick
Remember the placing of each and every stone
Remember the bone white light of each one
Beneath the bones of your feet,
Remember the queer light they cast for your dream.
He knocks the stones together to get out the green.
Remember with your feet as you descend that
There's gold in the mountain and that the stones
Skim circular on the bed of the stream.
He knocks the stones together to get out the green.
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Santa Maria del Mar
The lady in the portico of Santa Maria del Marupholds her cup at end of outstretched wristand the coins slip from my purse.
My heart is splitting with my leavingAs I walk within the dream churchAn angel with forehead aflame has dissolved and kept your room.
He constructs round me the green carpet of my own hallwayThe grandmother clock tocking above our fat golden buddhaTime to go, time to leave.
The angel of leaving occupies her niche at the Hotel SuisseThere's a cross jutting from her crownShe always will point to where you dream.
A roll of names is reeling amongst the flamesOf the votive candlesAnd every crown or halo is a crescent moon.
A man stands in the gloom half lit by the sunshine in the courtnearby the Catalan eternal flame.I begin to weave the remembered streets.
The tobacconist sits in her cage of butterfliesand fans dispensing her dry wit to a queue of womenIn the art district.
And in your hallway a lady in greyasks me where I am staying?'en atico, soy irlandesa'
The only words of Spanish to drop from my lipsI count the one hundred and seven steps
The image of the indelible blue numbers on a lady's pale wristaccompanies me..
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
The Ragbag
The Ragbag.
These small sorrrows are mine and they belong to the world.
Clothes that the children are outgrown
Disgorge brightly from it's mouth
I pull at them, a veined mass of scarves
and winding sheets unwind onto the floor.
Here is a piece for dressup, a flowery veil,
A robe, it could dress a dynasty.
The white napkins (plain)
A tablecloth (embroidered) flutter on the year's edge
And the flowers beneath my feet do not bloom.
I feel their stir beneath the loam.
(this is Part II of a trilogy about clothing, called 'Scraps)
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Aluine's Gardens
Before the houseBehind the sea,a garden.
Before the mountainBehind the house,a circuit of trees.
Before the houseBehind the sea,a strip of mown lawnenclosed with varieties of bees.
Before the MountainBehind the house,rows of aldersa circuit make.
Before the houseBehind the sea,a wild field conceals a blooming garden.
Before the mountainBehind the house,a sheltered bench upon whichshadows play.
Before the houseBehind the grass rolling down to rocky beach,a mown strip with flowersand bees.
Before the mountainBehind the house,a mazed world to read.
Before the house andthe grass rolling to rocky shore,
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
a small ingress to rose's bloomand lawn of green.
Before the cloudshrouded ReekBehind the house with fish inthe windows,a forest of trees, a flitting child.
Before the housea strip of mown grass quietly entrances.Right down to bird's flock at rocky shoreit seems the butterflies play.
Before the mountainBehind the house of gardens,A row of trees.Birds sing there.
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Abundance
Those images I had trashed, unable to follow their threads
Sing now their separation.
An arch forms beneath the new Forsythia leaf,
Enter the moorhen in her emerald stockings
She shakes off the waterdrops.
A wood pigeon lumbers through eggladen,
She threads a path through wet grass veined in blue weeds,
these mesmerise me.
My daisy chain is a fragmented treasure
That primrose is lone,
Lit against her iron post
She dreams of banked loam,
Inky mountain scenes.
False backdrop!
Yet she is sweeter for her dreams.
(this is related to a prose piece called 'Enter the Moorhen', about kidsdiscovering a vein and net of poetry whilst rehearsing a play)
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
________
Pretty Useless Things
A Summer's Evening, it's Grey raining
The flames of five candles are dancing gay,
As counterpoint, your little lamp is straining
Her low glow across the space between us.
And you give me pretty, useless things
These light symbols;
A golden bowl figured in silver round,
redglazed, a red not in nature found.
(I have a cycle completed of 7 pomes and 3 nocturnes, but amloath to publish them at the mo internalised drama... this is an old one)
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Placing the Candles
I am mute as I begin to place the candles
my hair veil is clasped up,
Little voice asks why the veil
and why the candles ?
Husband's hand steadies my grasp
and we begin again in one breath
A solitude of love,
I can feel his hand on the small of my back
The gulls are screaming outside
I hear their cries,
In a relentless wheeling descent.
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Goldfriend
In AngloSaxon Literature some of the most evocative songs and poems detailedthe exilic condition, some of the poems seemed to contain the voices of thosewho had already passed through death: the ultimate exile. In other cases thelord or leader was often a godlike persona ; and exile due to crime was consideredworse than death. I cannot remember many of the songs but images fromthem worked their way into my consciousness one of the most symbolicdescriptions was of the lord/retainer as the Goldfriend. This was written in the timeof a death of a close friend and I s'pos is a type of seeking dream that peoplego through in the grieftime.
Goldfriend , (after 'The Wanderer' , AngloSaxon)
Oak black
Rich with age
The floor is rich
As the glints
The jewelencrusted
Brocades give
Tapestries glint
In the shadows
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Of this hall
Where I have
Come to look for you
My lord,
Goldfriend
I go to your hand
For forgiveness
Maybe
Ah but there is nothing
For you to forgive
Just me
Just me
Or because you knew
I would come .
(I can put an excerpt of The Wanderer up that accompanies this, but
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
I had just rooted it out whilst looking for something else)
Dawning on the Square.
This is an old one and the paints are from a Cennini bookwhich I loveabout making paint...,
Dawning on the Square.
Burnt ochre to umber liquefies the dark
Indigos and charcoal quicken, they bleed
a capilliary of sorts.
The colours ground establish a sky
My opaques, ochre from the dirt,
The blues a stone.
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
lilies of the Field
Plump nippleblossoms more like,Neatly sewn onto her blue bodice.Virgin surprise, one wink andthey're blown confetti on wet ground.
(my blossom tree at nite in spring don't know its name butthe little white blossoms look like nipples and they make plum like berries)________
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Aluine's Gardens (II draft)
Before the housebehind the sea,a garden.
Before the Mountainbehind the house,a circuit of trees.
Before the small housebehind the grey sea,a strip of mown lawn enclosed with box.
Before the tall mountainbehind these six white walls of house,rows of young alders a circuit make.
Before the house of three steps upbehind the rocky strand down to the beach,a wild field conceals her garden's bloom.
Before the purple Reekbehind the house surrounded by fields,a sheltered bench within a circuit of trees.
II.
Before that shadow the Reek casts onto green fieldsbehind the grass rolling and tumbling to rocky beach,the lawn encloses varieties of bees.
Before Croagh Patrickbeyond the flatroof of the house,a mazed world wherein shadows flit.
Before the house where grass tumbles to rocky shorebehind the sound where gather gulls,a small ingress, a light step to rose's bloom, lawn of green.
Poems retrieved from Poetry Ireland’s Forum 20002013 , the majority of them first drafts andmostly later published. C. Murray
Before the cloudshrouded reekbehind the house with fish in the window,There is a forest of trees, a flitting child.
Before this small house where wind's flute and bassoonmocks the squake of gulls,a strip of lawn entrances to where butterflies play.
Before the sheltering reekand behind the small house of gardens,a simple circuit of trees, birds sing there.
(don't get up at 3am, you get fecking repetitive, thus get repetitive strain disorder)
is the first one better????