Posts Tagged ‘Irish’
A Terrible Beauty
Seen the cross in the graveyard
Saying this dreaming now must end
It’s time to end the oppression
Into which they’ve been condemned
I travelled to Kilmainham
Where martyrs died forlorn
All changed, changed utterly
A terrible beauty was bornNow the wind it shakes the barley
I saw them at end of the day
They were drinking in dark, smoke-filled pubs
They were arguing and having their say
But brother then shot brother
And families were wrenched and torn
All changed, changed utterly
A terrible beauty was bornI heard the skylark singing
As smoke rose from the incense
And the clouds above the barren church
Were his only audience
I saw that young nation
Was still in old monochrome
But the world was now in colour
Telling many to leave homeIn exile I watched Riverdance
They played rugby with style
In the air they built up confidence
On the earth new country miles
On the edge of a European Union
They were the Celtic Tiger grown
All changed, changed utterly
From that terrible beauty bornNo longer saints, no longer scholars
But I still see Celtic ghosts somehow
When the crash came, they fell so hard
They recover, as others allow
In this new world, they’re now free
But with chains, of a different form
United Nations, changed utterly
From a terrible beauty born
My Mother’s Country
You reach out through clumsy words,
Through shared things and scenes
You want me to like them too,
And for a while I miss what you mean…Your music is alien to me,
I see what their faces lack,
I listen to their stories,
And it brings me all the way back.
This was the country I left behind,
A country of catholic sin,
A country alien to me,
But that they felt at home in.
Once I thought I was better,
But now I just feel alone,
I have no real country,
And I have no real home.
I ripped all that tried to cling to me,
Because I needed to be free,
To travel on my quest,
To find out who I must be.
To become the butterfly,
I shed my caterpillar skin,
And on a wheel of stone,
The start has now come again…Then I hold your hand,
I listen and watch you smile,
Now love drowns our differences
After a little while.
Playing in the Shallows
We nurtured apple trees
In the late summer sun
She studied horticulture
My study was just done
She smoked brown cigarillos
I thought she was cool
She smiled enigmatically
I felt an uncertain foolI fancied her but I hid
As I tried to be aloof
Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman
They were my guiding proof
I was very inexperienced
Very clumsy with emotions
I played in the shallows
Afraid of drowning in her oceanWe got together somehow
In that summer long and hot
I was leaving Ireland
Our time together was so short
To a play in the Abbey
We chose a film together later
We drank our first wine
We laughed & tipped the waiterWe kissed in the dark
On the grass in Trinity college
What’s next for us she whispered?
I do not know, I acknowledged
She asked…can you stay?
But I wouldn’t be deflected
Now I see a candle light
Brighter now than when rejectedI was so tentative
I was feeling my way
She seemed confident and sure
Whispering to me as we lay
Her tenderness surprised me
As did her young desire
With her warmth radiating
Through her jeans like a fireThe smoky passion of her kiss
Said maybe she wanted more
But I was so much younger then
And inexperienced to my core
We tearfully kissed goodbye
Along the quays I was blown
To catch the last bus home
I thought of her…alone.
I’m Not In Love
“I’m not in love”, so the song said
As we danced through our time spent
In the dimly lit country hall
Where I asked you what it meant.
You smiled and you explained
Oh..you were so new on the scene
You had red hair and freckles
You were 15 to my, oh so mature, 17We laughed a lot together
We had something I needed
In my heart I felt something new
But I’d not learned how to read it.
I ripped away all who wanted me then
In a dark field I was blind
For a physical and mature experience
I left your innocence behindAnd I often wonder why
And I often regret
The voice calling in the darkness
“A nice bit of fluff” my dad said…
I was 21, I asked her to my party…
But like some movie oversight
She waited for me as I expected her
And so we passed like ships in the night.A year earlier I was a fool
I asked someone honourable to break
I wanted her to leave another
She knew it would be a mistake…
Now she moves in my shadows
My ghost from my yesterday
Alive but dead to my touch
In a picture that will never decay
On Childhood – 2
I crawled under the ivy
I crawled under the trees
I crawled to where the flowers grow
My father dug the earth
My mother gave birth
Under my hands I felt the earth flowI sat where the sun shone
Where the hay was tossed on
And the smell rose to the sky
We drank tea and fed
On rhubarb in bread
And we talked of things, Dad and II held his hand with the lark
I was afraid of the dark
As we took milk to the creamery
In the horse and cart
We laughed and felt part
Of the world that raced by meI stayed outside alone
I was scared on my own
I said I’d no money but I lied
All the children go
To the puppet show
I stayed outside and I criedDown the hill I go
Through the green meadow
I could see them all laid out
As the hailstones fell
As they lashed my legs
As they moved all our things out
