Children of Lir

Where you come in at is where you stay
The children of Lir are mute as they fly over lakes 
and see swans reflected in their obsidian depths.
The world doesn’t turn on a pin
Decades have passed in silent gliding.

The hated King in the coffin at the front
Will always be there.
The daughter silently kissing the coffin
Is a Greek tragedy
And we are the chorus.

As she spins her yarn
of dandelion clocks, 
weaves and sews shirts 
in voiceless vow.

Her promise, 
to make good the transformation
at the predestined time.

Speaking not a word
in the face of accusation
As her own children are stolen.

The stake and pyre are banked up
A whole day
and evening has passed now.

Five men in gossamer shirts walk from the funeral with their sister
singing The Green and Red of Mayo quietly to themselves 
putting out the singed hem of her gown.

The child with one good arm 
and one swan’s wing
Swings on cross gates.



Image wiki commons: Achill Head Co Mayo 1890
20 bar Gate Newmarket



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Pandemic Poems

Image
 Five Pandemic Poems 1. Solitary 2. At the bird sanctuary 3. Writing practice 4. Closing the chapter 5. Icon eyes                                              Image from Unsplash Open Source. 1.  Solitary  I could be a fifty-three-year-old woman. Living post-cancer. In a world where cancer is suddenly not the biggest, baddest virus on the Block. All the emotions I dealt with about a growing death within me. Harbouring an enemy in my breast. My habits during illness of self-imposed quiet, solitary days. The lore of stay home, stay safe. Now everyone experiences this in the time of lockdown, in a pandemic.                                              Blackbird Rainbow, by Frances Ann Norton 2.  At the bird sanctuary Its so hard growing up, my beautiful brave girl. The moment you were put into my arms after a long labour I knew you were a fighter, an old soul, determined and singular. You withstand your greatest health burden with magnanimity, dignity and stoic
Read more
Image
  https://www.haus-a-rest.com/new-page-72 Fantastic to have two poem selected for the Haus-A-Rest zine issue 39. Artschool and what it did or did not tell you.  The Ontological Art School and What I Learned There In a game of solitaire, I am dealt a number of random cards – these are my social locators. Where and when I was born and my parents, these things are out of my control. Just like the cards I have been dealt. Knowing and understanding my locators is like playing a game strategy. Making the best use of the cards I have. This is my ontology of the art school. My parents met at post-war art school in the 1940s. Their evenings were filled with philosophical and art theory discussions at the jazz clubs. The ontological context of the art school for me was in the wider community too. My sister and I grew in a network of artists, musicians, poets and designers. I thought everyone lived like this. We I spent our chodhood in the corridors and classrooms of the loc
Read more

Collect Art Publication July 2023

Image
 First published in Collect Arts Summer 2023 edition Stone all the flowers   The year of the art school tutorials. The difficult woman you are to me, and the difficulty I present to you. The year of my recovery and your husband’s death.   Your husband fails and worsens through the days of our trimesters together. As he weakens and declines, I grow incrementally stronger. As if terrible fatalistic scales of balance, set and reset.   Do not cheat her. Give her a full measure of time and experiences with him. Pressed down, shaken together and overflowing. She, in the face of all this decay   Chooses to destroy flowers with stones. Until their purple hearts stained the cartridge with their elemental pigments.   She cuts the flowers only to waste them in the parching sun. It is the cycle of being and unbeing, the grass withers and the flower fades (Isiah 40:8). She decides to press her flowers till their lungs burst on fine cotton Lawn.   Flower tortu
Read more