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Vol 2  No. 1
Winter 1999

Newsletter of the Munster Literature Centre Sullivan's Quay Cork

POETRY 2

    1  Missing  Oliver Dunne
    2 
The Pause  Fred Johnston
    3 
Remembrance  Robert Welch
    4 
For Dylan Thomas   Kate Davis
    5 
D H Lawrence Belles Lettres   Kate Davis
    6 
Self Portrait   John Liddy
    7 
The First Date  Giovanni Malito
    8 
Grave  Tommy Frank O'Connor
    9 
Eire's Blue Musician  Patrick Aidan English
  10 
Slow Air   Jim Daly
  11 
Breaking Out   Julie Anne Carleton
  12 
Frankish Days   Zlatko Tomicic
  13 
Aboard the Ark: Ham's Version   Matthew Geden
  14 
Shadow on the Earth  Sarah Iremonger
  15 
Aspiration   Fergal Gaynor
  16 
The Return to Pannonia   Zlatko Tomicic
  17 
Breacadh   Liam Ó Muirthile
  18 
For Esther   Tomás Ó Canainn
  19 
In Memoriam F. B.   Rosemary Canavan
  20 
Landscape with Lovers   Rosemary Canavan
 

Self Portrait

For Leland Bardwell


I am all of what I look and more.
A mere fledgling not fully born,
Older than the first cow of Ireland,
Wiser than a new frontier.

There are stories written all over
Me that cannot be retold. Should I
Live to see tomorrow I will be
The oldest man in the world.

                            John Liddy

 

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Woodcut: Annamakerrig,  by Constance Short

Autoretrato

para Leland Bardwell
Soy todo lo que parezco y más
Un mero pajarito que no ha acabado de nacer,
Más viejo que la primera vaca de Irlanda,
Más sabio que una nueva frontera.

Hay historias escritas por todo
Mi  ser que no se pueden volver a contar.  Si
Sobrevivo hasta mañana, seré
El hombre más viejo del mundo.                                        
                                         translated by Trudi Kiebala         
Woodcut and poems from 'Wine and Hope / Vino y Esperanza'   published July 1999, El Vuelo del  Autogiro with the assistance of ILE (Ireland Literature Exchange)

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The First Date

When I stooped forward
to look past you at someone else
you thought my gesture meant
that I wanted to kiss.

You raised your chin slightly
half closed your eyes
and wrinkled your face
into a sort of smiling frown.

And though no word spoken
nor any gesture yet made
had indicated my bending forward
was a calling out for a kiss

you brought your lips to mine.
My face must have told you
of my surprise as I drew back
quickly and then, we both laughed.

We never again had to compare
our favourite colours, tastes
in music or where we had been.
We never again discussed the weather.

                                                Giovanni Malito






Grave

After the funeral
I took our memories
back to thr river
that had joined us together.

Before the cancer took her
I promised to remember
the way our youth had gazed
at life supporting life

along the ripple and flow
that now stagnates
for want of life
that she would miss.

                                            Tommy Frank O'Connor

 

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Éire's Blue Musician

(To Seán Lucy)

A heron sails
Past the stars that rule
The cool damp sky.
Your words stoke souls;
The compressed heart.
The stone blue holy woman
Keens the passing of his art;
Laments fate's Unfinished Sequence.

Phantom deer leap Keimaneigh,
Storm the mystery of loss.
The riddleman in the Coolea reeds.
His blue notes converse with the frost
In the dark spots
You love and hate
To frequent.

                         Patrick Aidan English





Slow Air

Through your tin whistle
in my hand
the wind played
a slow air.

When darkness fell
over the headland
a bird hovered,
its eye trained on the cottage.

In the window, yellow light,
plain deal table,
your empty chair,
then out it wheeled, to sea.

One day
they will fashion a whistle
from its bones.

                         Jim Daly

 

Breaking Out

From seed, it blossoms by the stream
I wonder will I ever leave my cocoon
A swan forgets the cygnet's dream
And woman forgets what it's like in the womb.

Tadpoles swim beneath the moon
Animals remember the stars
Fireflies rise from the water like Venus
Insects sting with the Fire of Mars.

Earth rises and heaves at the hope of morning
Meadows swim with the magic of flowers
Birds sing in praise of the dawning
But my wonder controls me for hours.

                                 Julie Anne Carleton
 

Frankish Days


The murdered suckling babes are thrown to the dogs.
The Bructeri and the Sigambri laughó
Arrogant intruders retaliate against the avengers,
YOU WILL DISAPPEAR FROM THE FACE
OF THE EARTH, CROATS!
We will take away your name!
You will never be free from our bondage.
The dogs are keeping watch in the heavens.
On earth women scream in childbirth.
The indestructible seed glows,
The earth trembles, the earth sings.
It rumbles, ready for the earthquake.

                                      Zlatko Tomicic

                                     Translated by Nizeteo & Tatum
                                     From 'This Night'  Hamilton Press
 

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'Fruit'   Rosemary Canavan  

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Aboard the Ark: Ham's Version

He claims to have saved our bacon
this time, none of us have forgiven
him yet. It doesn't matter that he
was right, that clouds have banished
day into the apocalypse of night
or that land has been lost beneath
the indifferent slop of steady waves,
voices drowned in the deep.
We should have stayed at home,
locked him in a padded cell
and faced the end together.
Instead, we endured the vulgar shame
of jokes and sniggers on the dock
as he screamed, "Après moi le déluge!"
to the laughter of the crowd.
When all this is over what will
remain of us? A circus that no-one
will come to and a regular
supply of pork chops. How long
will we skim over this sea of wasted
bones? There's a stillness in the sky
tonight, the calm between the storms.

                                         Matthew Geden

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Shadow on the Earth


Yellow luminous fields
turn red as the sun goes down
bright sunshine fades to dusk
in the middle of the day

stopping the car along the road
to sneak a dangerous look
I punched a hole in a piece of paper
the darkness deepens

the birds are gone
a momentary night
reflected on the ceiling from the
lid of a paint can

                                          Sarah Iremonger

Aspiration

           to set
                       on paper
           some
                       unweighted
                                          word
            about whose
                                   small
            ink
                    framework
                                                                                     
            might play
 

           leaflight


                                 Fergal Gaynor

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