COMETH THE DANDY LIONS( for Lori K )

the dandy lions
roar... "We're here!"
and so they are

see how they
surprise the grass
fill the children's eyes

my daughter's feet
run into their colour
a yellow of delight

they bring the Spring
the first feast
for bees

she adores the French
"dents des lions!"
giggles at "pissenlit!"

her father knew them when
he was as little as herself
the "Irish daisy"

hear her sing "dents-de-lions
en printemps
champs de jaune champs de jaune!"

we knock up a sign
"This lawn is reserved
for dandelions only!"

see how they change
from suns into moons
fragile as a wish

that one day she
would become
her self

her breath blowing time
away she now
the woman of today

PLAYING IN THE MUD WITH CHRIST

Memory
shapes that summer
in its own image

the long days of sun
forgetting
the rainy ones

my little one asking
again and again
for "the puddle poem"

and so Christ
rising from the 7th Century
old Irish words

stands
like her
barely five

blesses
the puddles
He had made

she blesses
them the same
with great childish show

watches
amazed as He
creates birds out of mud

sees  them fly away
at the touch
of his voice

this her excuse
for the scattering
of mud

she sees herself
a Christ
and how words

can create birds
made of the mind
that fly beyond time

*

If I was listening to Joyce she would come and listen to his Finnegans Wake with me...not the least put out by the difficulty and dexterity but the dance of sound even without meaning.

So that summer and I reading old Irish poems from a long ago that had long vanished she would pick up on that...loving the seventh century THE BOYHOOD OF CHRIST and how Christ and her could be the same grand age of barely five. And when she looked into the reflections in a mud puddle she could reenact the poem in her mind and be at one with Him in something she could understand. A Christ in a mud puddle...now there was the Christ for her to be be a playmate with.

She also liked the baise fri tóin( slap on the ***)epigram AN INSULT from the ninth century amazed that there could be someone called anonymous and how some words could win you horses and some words win you...cows!

I hear
he won't give horses for poems.
He gives what his style allows:
cows.

But her great favourite was Pangur Bán with the cat and the monk getting along famously and to be content with each other and the work they had to do...the one chasing down words...the other...mice.

She also was a one for modern Irish-isms such as "Are ya stuck in a shuck( stuck in a ditch )purely for the sound of it and appreciated the sardonic phrase "I will...yea!" meaning "I won't no!"

And the phrase " Ahhh it will take donkey's years to do that" she always heard as "donkey's ears" and made her howl with laughter.

THE BOYHOOD OF CHRIST

When He was barely five
Jesus, the Son of God,
blessed twelve water puddles
He moulded out of clay.

He made a dozen birds
-the kind we call the sparrow-
He made them on the Sabbath,
perfect, out of clay.

A Jew there criticized Him
-Jesus, the Son of God-
and to His father Joseph
took Him by the hand.

"Joseph, correct your son,
he has committed wrong.
He made clay shapes of birds
upon the Sabbath day.

Jesus clapped His palms,
His little voice was heard.
Before their eyes -a miracle-
the little birds flew off.

The sweet, beloved voice was heard
from the mouth of Jesus pure:
"So they will know who made you
off with you to your homes."

A man who was there told everyone
the wonderful affair
and overheard they all could hear
the singing of the birds.

ONCE UPON A LONG TIME AGO

T-Rex roars fiercely
the little hands holding the wool
feeling foolish

Mama-Rex scolds
"Now Junior...just you hold still!
Then you can go make a ****!"

Junior( Teddy-T to his pals )
looks outside the cave
a pterodactyl has the sky to itself

Teddy-T squirms
in envy swears he'll tear it
wing from wing

the **** wool
rolls itself into a ball
like a tiny planet

"Who invented wool anyway?"
T-Rex junior roars silently
"Deus-Rex how I hate these cardies!"

the future looks orange
a bright orange
the sky full of time to come

Mamma-Rex looks lovingly
on her fidgety son
"Oh it hasn't been this icy in ages!"

a diplodocus
saunters by
without a thought in its head

T-Rex Junior fumes
that he is missing all those
tasty time travellers

"Is it me..." muses Mamma-Rex
"... or is there more of them time thingys
this season?"

"Now, Junior..!" she scolds
"You know there will be always
more where they came from!"

a meteorite hurtles towards
the tiny blue ball
singing the song of itself

"Don't stuff yourself with time travellers
...ya hear me now...they're bad
for your teeth!"

the meteorite enters
the atmosphere
"Wow!" shouts Junior "Wow!"

DÉCOUVRIR LE CIEL

doesn't even know
another language
exists

but he likes
the sound
steals this 'CIEL'

from a passing conversation
hoards such words
...such sounds.

loves their texture
their taste
upon the tongue

he thinks it says
"See...L."
why the hell - 'L'?

can't count for nuts
so doesn't even know
it's the alphabet's 12th letter

but likes the fact that
he has 2 'L's'
in his name

and so he acquires
language in such
little broken bits like this

his dyslexia loves it
that's enough for him
he's fallen for the letter 'L'

he's amazed when
in palm and psalm
it refuses to speak up for itself

years later 'CIEL' will
become the sky
in French

well, well..'CIEL'
who would have
thought it

even now
his dyslexia
that magpie of the mind

will morph words
shape shift
sound

his brain
second guessing
what it's found

so that passing in a car
the Clavadel Convalescence Home
you know the one

with the cow outside
in its pyjamas
and with a bandaged knee

becomes....the clavicle
in his warping mind
and his head chants

"the clavicle...the clavicle
there's nothing like
the clavicle . . .

for extending
the manubrium
of the sternum

and the acromion
of the scapula!"
before the dyslexia lets go

and so
Eliot's mystery cat
becomes

a mash up with
filched medical
knowledge

the dyslexia laughs
"That's my boy!"
ah well...

the English language
goes to 'L'
in a handcart

and all's well
that ends well
even if it doesn't

me and that boy
I was and
still am

continue
in tandem to
both invent and

...discover the sky
...découvrir le ciel
...inventer le ciel!

SKIN & BLISTER
( for Junie )

We grin & grimace
drop candle wax onto our fingertips

as the storm
rattles our window pane

angry that we won’t let it in.

All night  it rages
toppling chimney pots with a crash

smashing slates
it strips from rooftops

as we safe
giggle & peel off

our waxen
fingerprints

hold them
(tiny whirlpools)  
in our palms

those whorls of self
unique to each.

I wearing my sister’s
fingerprints

she... wearing mine.

GLASS

only
her red purse
returns

Inside it a sweet
some small change &
blood besprinkled glass.

it alone
survives
the crash

Death is only
a newspaper headline.
still...this grief

I weep tears
that don't show up
on my face

I push my fingers
deep in the purse
cut my fingertips to bits

the held glass
(all I have of you)
scarring my face

blind
to the pain
blind to the pain

the old blood
and the new mingles
and once more

if only for a second
we are together
for as long as the pain lasts

PER NOCTEM IN NIHILO VEHI
( TO VANISH BY NIGHT INTO NOTHING )

my death approached me
but: went on by without
recognising it was I...

i hid in the filthy alley
of a passing hour
Death now furiously searching for me

no...Here: here
no...There: there - either
this tiny piece of time

the once and once
only

but Mr. Death had missed the moment
had to return empty handed
I finding myself madly in love with

the next second. . .

**

Mr. Death elects to speak in Latin...thinks it gives him a certain je ne sais quoi...

It's always great to cheat Mr. Death and his henchman Mr. Heartattack. I swore to myself that I would love the next second with all my heart!

In addition to its inclusion among the many translations of Catullus' collected poems, Catullus 101 is featured in Nox (2010), a book by Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson that comes in an accordion format within a box. Nox concerns the death of Carson's own brother, to which the poem of Catullus offers a parallel. Carson provides the Latin text of 101, word-by-word annotations, and "a close and almost awkward translation".

Multās per gentēs et multa per aequora vectus
adveniō hās miserās, frāter, ad īnferiās,
ut tē postrēmō dōnārem mūnere mortis
et mūtam nēquīquam alloquerer cinerem
quandoquidem fortūna mihī tētē abstulit ipsum
heu miser indignē frāter adēmpte mihī
nunc tamen intereā haec, prīscō quae mōre parentum
trādita sunt trīstī mūnere ad īnferiās,
accipe frāternō multum mānantia flētū.
Atque in perpetuum, frāter, avē atque valē.

Having been carried through many nations and over many seas,
I arrive, brother, at these wretched funeral rites
so that I might present you with the last tribute of death
and speak in vain to silent ash,
since Fortune has taken you, yourself, away from me.1
Alas, poor brother, unfairly taken away from me,
now in the meantime, nevertheless, these things which in the ancient custom of ancestors
are handed over as a sad tribute to the rites,
receive, dripping much with brotherly weeping.
And forever, brother, hail and farewell.

Catullus 101