A CHRISTMAS CHILDHOOD by Patrick Kavanagh

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Anthony Cronin, John Ryan, Patrick Kavanagh

 

 A Christmas Childhood
A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.
My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.
Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy’s hanging hill,
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon — the Three Wise Kings.
And old man passing said:
‘Can’t he make it talk –
The melodion.’ I hid in the doorway
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.
I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife’s big blade –
there was a little one for cutting tobacco.
And I was six Christmases of age.
My father played the melodion,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.

Patrick Kavanagh

THE COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

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THE COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

This is definitely the country for old men;

All they do is eat and sleep, shit and piss all day long.

They breathe unaided when able

And display their puny achievements

On their shiny bedside tables;

They shout ‘nurse’ at every woman that passes by

Sometimes not even knowing why.

This is where dignity means not wearing a nappy

And where a having a peaceful night

Is the next best thing to being happy.

In the morning the relentless cleaning army

Marches the corridors and recovery rooms

Paying lip service to King Bug

And his equally efficient army of bodyterrorists and goons.

See them leering and lurking in the corners and caverns

Encouraging those mobile to pop their pills in the dingy taverns.

At ten the medics sweep in, the hierarchy I mean

Being attended to like royalty by bees around their queen.

Their orders are issued  and the drones get busy

Drip-feeding the helpless and making them dizzy.

Yes, this is the country for helpless old men;

Thank God I’m escaping today

And never returning again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AMERICAN FOOTBALL

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This poem by Harold Pinter is about the Gulf War. I think it is just as relevant today.

American Football by Harold Pinter
Hallelullah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.

It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!

Hallelullah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

SHEEP

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SHEEP

The sheep are doing it again

Trodding the path others trod before them;

When will they learn that

Imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery,

Merely the last kicks

Of a soon-to-be-dead battery?

DEFRAGGING THE SCANDISK

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DEFRAGGING THE SCANDISK

All this talk about the mathematical concept of infinity
As if it was a numbers game
Real numbers, that is
Not those sets of integers
Or Cardinalities
Favoured by the current crop of God-botherers
Lemniscate my arse
Stop going on and on and on
Infinity is not a number
When you’re gone, you’re fucking gone

I’LL TELL ME MA

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I’LL TELL ME MA – THE LIAM CLANCY STORY – NOW ON AT PENTAMETERS THEATRE, HAMPSTEAD UNTIL 29TH NOV. TUE-SAT 8pm  SUN 5pm.

 BE THERE!!!

The Clancy Bros. and Tommy Makem were bigger in the USA in 1963 than the Beatles. Bob Dylan to this day claims that Liam Clancy is the best ballad singer he ever heard.

Yet they may never have existed if it wasn’t for Diane Hamilton (Guggenheim). She was a wealthy American divorcee with money and influence, and she loved music.

In the mid 1950’s she toured Ireland, searching for talent for her new record label, and discovered, amongst others, Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem.

As a result, Liam Clancy found himself in the USA, aged 20, learning the music and acting business, courtesy of Diane Guggenheim – and in between trying to keep Diane out of his bed. Diane was so smitten that she attempted suicide one night, after Liam literally kicked her from of his bed in her house in Connecticut.  That was when Liam lit out for Greenwich Village, and the Clancy Bros were born.

I'll Tell Me Ma front poster

BOB DYLAN, to this day, says Liam was the best ballad singer he ever heard.

HAROLD PINTER WAS AT THE ROYAL COURT TODAY

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I  I was at the Royal Court today and saw Harold Pinter

2  Oh yeah?

I  He spoke to me.

2  What did he say?

I  Asked me where the loo was.

2  No, he fucking didn’t.

I  You’re right, he didn’t.

2  He asked that American shitbag  Le Butt…Le Bute…Labute

I  How do you know?

2  He told me.

I  Who…Labute?

2..Yeah.

I  No, he didn’t.

2  You’re right, he didn’t.  He wasn’t even there. Fuck, I wasn’t even there.

DOING THE CONGA

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DOING THE CONGA

The cows were in the fields again today,

Lowing softly

As they grazed their lives away.

What thoughts did they possess

As they chewed their grass so sweet;

Did they think about their comrades

That they did daily meet;

Or the colour of their skin

As they passed in the noonday sun;

With their patchwork blankets skin-tight

As they congaed past as one.

OLD MATTRESSES

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OLD MATTRESSES

They have raised a highway

Across our valley

And landscaped it

With blocks of windowed concrete.

Beneath, the river strangles itself

With shopping trolleys

And bits of old bicycles

Worn-out mattresses

And smashed-up pallets are everywhere

While a bloated condom

Flutters by on a piece of driftwood.

Painted hoarding-women

With rotating eyes

Compete for attention

With pram-pushing young love,

Their stilettos tap-dancing the hard shoulder

On a clear day

Juggernauts gleam in the sun

And rolled-up tabloids

Tell tall tales about Royalty

Or football….and Sex

0n A Ruined Farm Near The ‘His Master’s Voice Gramophone Factory’ – Poem by George Orwell

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ON A RUINED FARM NEAR HIS MASTER’S VOICE GRAMOPHONE FACTORY    by George Orwell

As I stand at the lichened gate
With warring worlds on either hand —
To left the black and budless trees,
The empty sties, the barns that stand

Like tumbling skeletons — and to right
The factory-towers, white and clear
Like distant, glittering cities seen
From a ship’s rail — as I stand here,

I feel, and with a sharper pang,
My mortal sickness; how I give
My heart to weak and stuffless ghosts,
And with the living cannot live.

The acid smoke has soured the fields,
And browned the few and windworn flowers;
But there, where steel and concrete soar
In dizzy, geometric towers —

There, where the tapering cranes sweep round,
And great wheels turn, and trains roar by
Like strong, low-headed brutes of steel —
There is my world, my home; yet why

So alien still? For I can neither
Dwell in that world, nor turn again
To scythe and spade, but only loiter
Among the trees the smoke has slain.

Yet when the trees were young, men still
Could choose their path — the winged soul,
Not cursed with double doubts, could fly,
Arrow-like to a foreseen goal;

And they who planned those soaring towers,
They too have set their spirit free;
To them their glittering world can bring
Faith, and accepted destiny;

But none to me as I stand here
Between two countries, both-ways torn,
And moveless still, like Buridan’s donkey
Between the water and the corn.

George Orwell