Poetry Time: Threads…
Most regulars will know we don’t do a lot of poetry here. Paradox, irony, humour are all things we’re in deficit of. But I’m make an exception for this concise piece from Fermanagh ex pat Ian Acheson, who’s been putting up his output on his blog from the last twenty years…
This piece is called threads, and predates the flag crisis. But there’s some resonances in it for what’s been coming apart over the last few months:
Threads
We took Narcissus
For our patron saint,
Coming apart at the seams
In our abbreviate cantons,
With no great persuasion.
Our unrequited fealty,
Our nuclear paranoia
Needs a broader canvass
Than the frayed edges
Of this Kingdom will allow.
Bit of a cameo for you there too Mick! More poetry please.
Unrequited? I certainly think so….
More recommendations, and we definitely will have more poetry…
mick i have a few , if you like i will post them…
Send them to editor address?
If you like cameos, remember what the Duke of York says in Richard II:
I am in parliament pledge for his truth
And lasting fealty to the new-made king.
A lot o’ boys took Sweet William for their patron saint.
Thanks for that quote, David. You could have added this quote from the Duke a few moments later on the matter of family treachery:
Thou fond mad woman,
Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?
A dozen of them here have ta’en the sacrament,
And interchangeably set down their hands,
To kill the king at Oxford.
Thanks, Nevin, but I had to stop where I did. Another two lines would have brought us “the green lap of the new come spring”, which mightn’t have gone down too well with everyone.
Has anyone come across Narcissus Batt, a Belfastian burgess of former time?
Two gentlemen of that name, David, uncle and nephew. The Donegal based nephew has a great account of Belfast in the 1830s , including a mention of the cholera cart and a bathing box in Holywood on piles a long way out – long before Mick’s time
I think it was Chesterton who noticed that poets were remarkably coy on the subject of cheese and I know that it was H.L. Mencken who was of the opinion (and one that I share) that “any poet over thirty years old was simply an overgrown child, but I must say that I was much taken by Ian Acheson’s effort, which is really high praise from me.
In general though, I am strongly of the view that would-be poets should not be encouraged and, if they persist, should be driven off with buckshot.
Driven off with buckshot ha.
Other drunks see pink elephants .
Kurt Vonnegut .
I think.
Something about reaching for your revolver Rory?
Rory
I suggest driving them off with buckfast.
Nine lines of Shakespeare say it all.
Narcissus so himself himself forsook,
And died to kiss his shadow in the brook;
When half to half the word opposed, he being
The meered question: ’twas a shame no less
Than was his loss, to course your flying flags
In the south suburb, at the Elephant.
Command my eldest son — nay, all my sons –
As pledges of my fealty and love,
Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese.
Quite possibly the most dreaded words in the English language:
“I write a bit of poetry myself. Would you like me to read some to you ?”
“Nine lines of Shakespeare say it all.”
That would be nine lines of pic’n'mix Shakespeare, David, a collection of unrelated images.
Nevin, that frivolous species of collection is called a cento. People ‘wrote’ Vergilian centos in the Middle Ages.
Rory, you’re dead right. Get all the amateur poets into one room, bring in the Daleks, and leave them to it.
Prolific songwriter (Mountains of Mourne), Percy French once penned a wonderful parody of the nursery rhyme, Little Bo Peep as written by William Wordsworth. But then the man who could break your heart with the poignant lyrics of Come Back, Paddy Reilly when challenged to compose a winning song around the improbably named (to English ears) Cavan town of Ballyjamesduff knew well how to play with a phrase here and there.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find a copy of it anywhere but you can hear that consumate interpreter of all things French, Brendan O’Dowda recite it here (about 39 mins in):
http://bit.ly/WpfMQK
Many thanks for the link, Rory! I managed to find the text.
The Garden of Eden has vanished they say
But I know the lie of it still
Just turn to the left at the bridge of Finea
And stop when halfway to Cootehill.
‘Tis there I will find it I know sure enough
When fortune has come to my call,
Oh the grass it is green around Ballyjamesduff
And the blue sky is over it all
And tones that are tender and tones that are gruff,
Are whispering over the sea,
Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff,
Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.
My mother once told me that when I was born
The day that I first saw the light,
I looked down the street on that very first morn
And gave a great crow of delight.
Now most newborn babies appear in a huff,
And start with a sorrowful squall
But I knew I was born in Ballyjamesduff
And that’s why I smiled on them all.
The baby’s a man, now he’s toil-worn and tough,
Still, whispers come over the sea,
Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff
Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.
The night that we danced by the light of the moon,
Wid Phil to the fore wid his flute,
When Phil threw his lip over ‘Come Again Soon,’
He’s dance the foot out o’ yer boot!
The day that I took long Magee by the scruff
For slanderin’ Rosie Kilrain,
Then, marchin’ him straight out of Ballyjamesduff,
Assisted him into a drain.
Oh, sweet are the dreams, as the dudeen I puff,
Of whisperings over the sea,
Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff
Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.
I’ve loved the young women of every land,
That always came easy to me;
Just barrin’ the belles of the Black-a-moor brand
And the chocolate shapes of Feegee.
But that sort of love is a moonshiny stuff,
And never will addle me brain,
For the bells will be ringin’ in Ballyjamesduff
For me and me Rosie Kilrain!
And through all their glamour, their gas and their guff
A whisper comes over the sea,
Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff
Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.
Thank you, David. However it was the lyrics of the Wordsworth/Little Bo Peep parody which had eluded me. However if we cannot read them we can watch and listen to Brendan O’Dowda recite them in the link I provided above.
Well Ive just my Burns supper of neaps and tatties, albeit a day early!
God Bless your honest sonsy face (sorry)
I walked with her upon the hill, her
grief was very deep.
Her tears were running like a rill, for
she had lost her sheep.
What were they like, my gentle maid, were
they some special kind?
They all had heads in front, she said, and
all had tails behind.
Their bodies were between the two, their
mouths were full of teeth,
And this may prove a clue, she said, their legs
were underneath.
If they have legs, I cried with joy, your
tears you may refrain,
For ’tis their legs they will employ, to
take them home again.
In the same sort of area, GKC did a magnificent set of variations on ‘Old King Cole’.
This poetry-quotation lark is one that cannot be “won”. The whole essence of poetry is the effect of compressed language and experience. Hence, each finds in the expression what he/she wants. For example, I found in Acherson’s piece some interesting expression, but little real “depth”. Where is there any development of that opening declaration:
We took Narcissus
For our patron saint …?
Did we? Famous Seamus used Narcissus in For Michael Longley, especially since that poem is a direct response to Longley’s own Narcissus. How does Acherson improve on those?
In passing, I noticed that Thomas Pascoe, perhaps reprising his GCSE English anthology, dragged Simon Armitage into his Daily Telegraph sketch of PMQs this week. [Ah! the joys of an iPad, on-line, not in one of the dives on Fifty-second Street, /Uncertain and afraid, but, replete and imbibing Berliner Dunkel, in a couth joint in the Nikolaiviertel.]
Pascoe vamped it like this:
Or, as Armitage originally had it:
I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi’s and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.
I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I
skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone’s inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.
I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light-aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.
And I guess that the tightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.
Actually, as Armitage the ex-social worker knows, it is what you do, and how it continues to affect you. And, with respect, for me, Acherson didn’t.
When we take back Patrick
For our patron saint,
The cloths of heaven
Will be bright with embroidery.
The new bards of Ireland
Will sing of clean primrose,
Ferns by a tree-root,
Whin-flowers in winter,
And the old hawthorn hedges
Of our kingdom by the sea.