Poems for All Occasions (11 page)

Those limbs of timber like giants, they stared.

As if to say “poor weakling dry your tears,

We’re here to entertain you ere you sleep,

Relax, just watch us quiver in the breeze,

And we will bring you to a world of dreams.”

Their limbs were bare this Winter eve

Millions of veins from branch to tree.

‘T was then I saw the pictures clear

That my friends the Threes had promised me.

Nestling in their midst I saw the noble heads

Of horses tall, some deer, some elephants

Their trunks araised, playing ball

With a painted clown, how he could fall

I saw his face, with monkeys glaring

Like tiny boats on the waves asailing.

But best of all was a grey brown hare

The trapeze expert I did declare.

I moved the pillow ‘neath my head

And gazed again from my sick bed,

Gone was the circus that I viewed

But what a sight, ’twas an instant cure.

A Victorian party in full swing

The ladies dancing they seemed to sing

The gents all chatting in groups serene

Raising their glasses in joyful glee.

Waiters tripping slipping, laughing,

Glasses falling, wine was splashing.

I moved my head and looked again

To see the view had changed and then,

My friends, the trees coaxed me to watch

Another drama a mighty plot.

And so the hours passed quickly by

Into a deep sleep, at last fell I.

With dreams of lovely friendly trees

Waving their arms, lullabying me to sleep.

Nobody should unduly cut down a tree

Because they can humour you and me,

Gaze into the heart of a mighty tree

And you will see each picture flee

You too may hear its whisper say,

“I am your friend my roots in clay,

I breathe and purify the smog filled air

Alone I stand in storm and hail

In a semi private ward, two women lay, one young

with shining auburn hair,

The other, slightly aged, still showing the remnants

Of well shaped cheek bones, slightly wrinkled, her face. .

Both had tears in their eyes, as they gazed sideways at one another.

No words were spoken in that silent room,

Last night, both women felt the gentle kick of babies

in their wombs,

To-day only a numbness filled the vacuum,

where once life promised

To leap forth in joyous ecstasy.

The older of the two dropped tears over pale white cheeks.

For the third time, she knew she had lost a longed for child ,

Born in still birth, “lack of oxygen ,” they told her.

In her heart, there was little hope of ever holding

a baby soft and warm,

Flesh of her flesh in her motherly arms,

All hopes were dashed that morn, she felt too dazed

to scream and shout ,

Yet she longed to stand on top of a mountain and

tell of her loss aloud.

Her sad gaze rested on the teenager beside her,

abortion over, drooping eyes,

Perhaps too frightened to cope with a crying child.

To-day, she was feeling terrible. to- morrow,

she would leave yesterday behind

Perhaps sometimes cry, but the older woman

would cherish yesterday forever,

The memory of a baby corpse foremost in her mind.

You enticed them there,

With promise of future life,

Claiming to be their Christ,

As if you could ever equal Him.

Who was gentle, pure and kind.

Korish, how proud your thought

Of absurd grandeur,

master of adult and child.

Those they called Mothers

were pleasure weapons

in your secluded harem

of brain washed women,

Whose violated bodies

utter unheard sighs.

Tears on the stones

of a Waco wall.

Sick and sore,

From the tiniest babe

To the mature squaw.

Wild furnace

Enveloping the compound,

Whose intense heat

Melted the inmates

To a fate of living hell.

A madman’s sick claim

Maturing in death

To an achieved aim.

Sickening smell of human flesh,

in a trench ablaze,

sent pangs of nausea and vomit,

down her dried up gullet.

Still breathing In spite of her encounter

with smoky smothering gas,

Which earlier on, had sent her body

into a coma of unconscientiousness

A coma between earth and heaven.

In a dream, she saw Jerusalem,

Sixteen years hence she was born into

a city proud and beautiful

A city of shrines and, holy wells,

her home, her first womb.

Here neath a Polish sky,she is left

half dead by men of another faith.

Yet the ambition to live still lingered

in her shocked young brain.

Lying there naked, as when she first

escaped from her mother’s womb

Her ruptured head, she slighty turns

To gaze at the shadow of a figure in dark

green uniform

His form becomes more visible neath the

golden rays of an Auschwitz sunrise.

Holding a rifle in a hand that trembled and shook

He aimed its deadly point at the Jewish

head of dark brown ringlets.

She closed her eyes,

Glad that her agony would suddenly end,

Death, the dread of her childhood innocence

Would to day, be a welcome joy,

She would cherish and embrace its morbid image.

Seconds looked like hours

Yet no sound hit her ear drums

No burst of gunfire

Instead she felt the grasp of a healthy young hand,

Which hauled her forth

from the masses of decaying flesh

Flesh of her Jewish countrymen.

Two faiths collided

Hence that trench in Auschwitz

Yet the fairhaired Nazi

Failed to pull the trigger

His fascist principles overcome,

By the sight before him.

A fascist and a Jew face to face

His character overcame the urge,

to silence forever the young Jewess

Her knotted curls entwined in blood

Found a path of friendship into his heart.

The collision of faiths over,

He wiped away from her ruptured face,

The mass of earth and dust,

Liquidised in human blood.

She reminded him of his teenage sister.

( THE FOLLOWING VERSES WERE COMPOSED
BY ME TO TEACH MY PUPILS THE RIVERS AND
MOUNTAINS OF IRELAND
. . . A VERY SIMPLE WAY TO MEMORISE. )

The
LIFFEY
flows through
DUBLIN,

And
CORK
is on the
LEE,

The
SHANNON
winds

through pastures green

Of
LIMERICK
to the sea.

The
FOYLE
through
DERRY

winds its way,

The
LAGAN
through
BELFAST,

And men in
TIPPERARY
watch

the
SUIR
go gently past.

The
BOYNE
by ancient
DROGHEDA
,

Flows quietly and free,

The Vartry flows through WICKLOW

Into the deep blue sea.

The
SLANEY
glides by
WEXFORD

Its seventy miles in length,

The
BARROW
on
NEW ROSS
we see

Is a river full of strength.

Let’s not forget

THE MUNSTER BLACKWATER,

O’er lovely
YOUGHAL
fair,

Likewise the gentle
BANDON,

Flowing softly through
KINSALE.

And then the baby rivers

Nursing the
SHANNON
deep,

T
he INNY and the BROSNA, the DEALE,

THE MAIGUE, THE FEALE.

On the right of the SHANNON making it grow

Are the
SUCK and THE FERGUS,

Gliding gently and slow.

ANTRIM has mountains so lovely,

In DOWN, NEAR ARMAGH, you can see

The
MOUNTAINS OF MOURNE
so slyly

Stretching downwards to greet the blue sea.

In
WICKLOW, LUG NA QUILLA
is towering,

I’ts over 3000 feet in the air,

And
Wex ford
can boast of its charming

Lofty and gallant
BLACKSTAIRS.

Tipperary i
s wealthy in mountains,

It has the
GALTEES, KNOCKMEALDOWN

And SLIEVEBLOOM

But
KERRY
has the highest peak in Ireland

The lovely an d stately
CARRANTOOLE.

North of CLEW BAY in old
MAYO,

Is
NEIPHIN, THE BIG AND THE SMALL,

And the DONEGAL MOUNTAINS look glorious

With
ERRIGAL
towering o’er all.

When e’er you’re sad and lonely,

Treading over the same old trail,

Gaze outside at others’ problems,

Get involved in someone else’s maze.

If humans keep on hurrying,

How pained they must surely be.

Because one moves so quickly,

They never really see

The flowers in the garden,

Or the stars in the sky,

Everything unnoticed

When you are rushing by.

The old man by the roadside,

Alone, deserted he,

Or a young man , his heart is bleeding

Quivering without food or peace.

The stranger from a foreign land,

Sad his eyes, unfulfilled his dreams,

Just stop and gaze and listen

Though skies be overcast

Problems, like bad weather

Never really last.

Give praise for every blessing,

Your home, your job and friends,

Take nothing e’er for granted,

Its peace the good Lord sends.

No matter how you worry

If life seems minus fun,

Expect a bright to morrow,

Turn your face to the rising sun.

POEM WRITTEN on 4th Dec 2006

I sat one day feeling sad, down hearted

My usual bright outlight in life was shattered

I wondered was there more to life in Mars, Pluto, Venus

Then I saw a wasp from the bee family, swarming

Around my living room wall

I saw life, I saw movement, I saw hope.

Had I lived in any of the unknown planets

How joyful I would have been

Had I sat alone there and then I saw

Gliding over the distant sky

A moving object,

it was only a bee or a wasp

But to me it was life, small though it was

It gave me hope, courage, confidence

The smallest of God’s creations

Was sent to this globe of ours

To relay a message from Heaven

“I am with you all my beloved

No matter where you all are,

Thank You God I get Your message.

’Twas one a.m. in the morning,

And Chris Barry’s Show was on,

I lay in bed and listened

To the phone ins, some short, some long.

The theme was” Dublin Brothels,”

Some in favour, loads against,

Then Chris explained he had a man,

Incognita outside one den.

A lady in her Autumn years

Rang in and said her Spake

She said that men

frequenting dens of sin,

Should be jailed for years, not weeks.

“Sugar Daddies,” she called them,

And rambled on with ease.

She swore they’d burn in hell fire

Their poor wives at home asleep.

Chris tried to soften her anger.

But she sighed a long sad moan,

At last he said quite innocently,

“So their deeds, you don’t condone.”

“I have a man Incognita, he said,

Pause a second, try relax”

Says she in dazed amazement,

“INCOGNITA,” where the feck is that?”

Snow flakes were falling,

When I sat with you,

Beneath a tall fir tree,

You vowed to be true.

You shivered so faintly,

Your eyes were aglow.

I’d die for you only,

My jewel in the snow.

CHORUS:

You whispered “I love you,”

My heart lost a beat.

The snow flakes fell softly,

And lay at your feet.

A picture so lovely,

So vivid, so clear,

Green branches, white carpet,

Love warm and real.

Snow flakes were falling,

The years have gone by,

By our fire side, we sit now,

And gaze out at the sky,

The flames leap up yonder,

They crackle and glow,

Our hearts are now warmer,

Goodbye to the snow.

Some people say they’re lonely,

When in a house alone,

But if they have a clock that ticks,

It’s better than lumps of gold.

Its tick-tock soothes one’s temperament,

It greets you first thing at morn,

And the last thing that you hear at night,

Is its peaceful gentle charm.

Should you suffer from insomnia,

Go get a clock to day

Sure that’s what all our mothers did,