Women of Ireland

The song below is in honor of Dale, Brendon and their four Irish wolfhounds. In the picture above young Brighid is making John feel right at home.

Mna na h Eireann

versions: Sinead O'Connor; Kate Bush; The Chieftains (instrumental); The one in Barry Lyndon

Ta bean in Eirinn a phronnfadh sead damh is mo shaith le n-o
'S ta beann in Erinn is sa binne leithe mo rafla ceoil no seinm thead
Ata bean in Eirinn is niorbh fhearr le beo
Mise ag leimnigh no leagtha ! gcre is mo tharr faoi fhod

Ta bean in Eirinn a bheadh ag ead, liom mur bhfaighinn ach pog
0 bihean ar aonach, nach ait an sceala, is mo dhaimh fein leo
Ta bean ab fhearr lom no cath is cead dhiobh nach bhfagham go de
Is ta cailin speiruil ag fear gan bhearla, dubghranna croin

Ta bean a dearfaidh da siulainn leithe go bhfaighinn an t-or
Is ta bean 'na leine is is fearr a mein no na tainte bo
Le bean a bhuairfeadh baile an mhaoir agus clar thin eoghaln
Is ni fhaicim leigheas ar mo ghalar fein ach scaird a dh'ol


Women of Ireland

There's a woman in Ireland who'd give me a gem and a pint,
There's a woman in Ireland to who likes my song not strings
There's a woman in Ireland who'd like me better leaping
Than laid in the clay and my belly under the sod

There's a woman in Ireland who'd grudge me a kiss
From a woman at a fair, strange! The love I have for them...
There's a woman I'd shun an army for, and 100 I'll never get
While a swarthy man with no English has a beautiful girl.

There's a woman who'd promise gold if I walked with her
And one in a nightdress whose mien beats herds of cows
With a woman who'd deafen Ballymoor and Tyrone
And I see no cure for my disease but to give up the drink

more about "Mná na h-Éireann"
(yes, I don't know what it's all about either)

He Calls That Religion

See/Hear Video

Well, the preacher used to preach
To try to stay atoned
But now he's preachin'
Just to buy jellyroll*

Well, he calls that religion
Yes, he calls that religion
Well, he calls that religion
But I know he's goin' to hell when he dies

It was at a church last night
Had desire to be
The old preacher
Was tryin' to take my wife from me

Oh, he call that religion
Yes, he call that religion
Well, he called that religion
I know he's goin' to hell when he dies

Preacher always
He was a mighty true man
He gives his commence
And he couldn't understand

Well, he calls that religion
Yes, he called that religion
Well, he called that religion
but I know he goin' to hell when he dies

(guitar & fiddle)

Oh yes, he calls that religion

He will swear he's keepin'
God's command
Have women fussin' 'n fightin'
All over land

And then he call that religion
Well, he calls that religion
Well, he called that religion
But I know he's goin' to hell when he dies

Therein the people
Stopped goin' to church
They know that preacher
Was tryin-a do too much

But still he called that religion
Still, he called that religion
Well, he called that religion
But I know he's goin' to hell when he dies

Old Deacon Jones
He was a preachin' King
They caught him 'round the house
Tryin-a shake that thing

Oh, he called that religion
Yes, he called that religion
Well, he called that religion
But I know he goin' to hell when he dies

'Oh yeah, he calls that religion'.

*Jelly roll is Harlem slang of the 1930s, a picturesque term for 'vagina'.

Image is taken from Wikipedia

A Modest Proposal

There is no better way to know us
Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.
Now neither's able to sleep -- even at a distance
Distracted by the soft competing pulse
Of the other; nor able to hunt -- at every step
Looking backwards and sideways, warying to listen
For the other's slavering rush. Neither can make die
The painful burning of the coal in its heart
Till the other's body and the whole wood is its own.
Then it might sob contentment toward the moon.

Each in a thicket, rage hoarse in its labouring
Chest after a skirmish, licks the rents in its hide,
Eyes brighter than is natural under the leaves
(Where the wren, peeping round a leaf, shrieks out
To see a chink so terrifyingly open
Onto the red smelting of hatred) as each
Pictures a mad final satisfaction.

Suddenly they duck and peer.
And there rides by
The great lord from hunting. His embroidered
Cloak floats, the tail of his horse pours,
And at his stirrup the two great-eyed greyhounds
That day after day bring down the towering stag
Leap like one, making delighted sounds.

Bridestones

Scorched-looking, unhewn -- a hill-top chapel.
Actually a crown of outcrop rock --
Earth's heart-bone laid bare.

Crowding congregation of skies.
Tense congregation of hills.
You do nothing casual here.

The wedding stones
Are electrified with whispers.

And marriage is nailed down
By this slender-necked, heavy-headed
Black exclamation mark
of rock.

And you go
With the wreath of weather
The wreath of horizons
The wreath of constellations
Over your shoulders.

And from now on
The sun
Can always touch you
With the shadow of this finger.

From now on
The moon can always lift your skull
On to this perch, to clean it.

Call Boy

Git out o' bed, you rascals,
Take it up from de covers,
Bring it to de strawboss
Fast as you can;
Down to de railroads
De day is beginnin',
An' day never waited
Fo' no kinda man.

Sun's jes a-peekin'
Over top o' de mountains,
An' de fogclouds a-liftin'
Fo' de break of day;
Number Forty-four's pantin',
Takin' on coal an' water,
And she's strainin' ready
Fo' to get away.

Leave yo' wives and yo' sweethearts,
Yo' pink and yo' yaller,
Yo' blue black and stovepipe,
Yo' chocolate brown;
All you backbitin' rascals,
Leave de other men's women,
De night crew from de roundhouse
Is a-roundin' roun'.

O you shifters and humpers,
You boiler washers,
You oilers and greasers
Of de drivin' rods,
You switchers and flagmen,
Tile layers and tampers,
Youse wanted at de Norfolk
And Western yards.

You cooks got to cook it
From here to Norfolk,
You waiters got to dish it
From here to Tenessee,
You porters got to run
From here to Memphis,
Gotta bring de man's time,
Dontcha see, dontcha see?

De air may be cold an'
Yo' bed may be easy,
Yo' babe may be comfy
An' warm by yo' side;
But don't snore so loud
Dat you can't hear me callin',
Don't ride no nightmare,
Dere's engines to ride.

Git up off o' yo' shirt-tails,
You dumb lazy rounders,
Think I'm gonna let you
Sleep all day?
Bed has done ruint
Dem as can't leave it,
You knows you can't make it
Actin' datway...

Sterling A. Brown

Strawboss: A worker who acts as a boss or crew leader in addition to performing regular duties.
Roundhouse: workplace consisting of a circular building for repairing locomotives .
Stovepipe: ? [one Urban Dictionary definition is "a white woman who sleeps with black men."]
Blueblack: African American with very dark skin.
Shifter: A switcher in the terminology of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Humper: [Not sure but a hump yard is a yard where railcars are rearranged by rolling down a hill into a series of tracks. [http://www.vnerr.com/news/slang.html]
Oilers and greasers: oil and grease moving parts of friction surfaces of mechanical equipment (eg driving rods)


Check out this website for old Harlem Slang:
http://aalbc.com/authors/harlemslang.htm

Image taken between 1909-1932.
Obtained from http://www.old-picture.com

The Dracula Vine

People on the moon love a pet.
But there's only one pet you can get --
The Dracula Vine, a monstrous sight!
But the moon-people like it all right.

This pet looks like a climbing plant
Made from parts of elephant.
But each flower is a hippo's head
Endlessly gaping to be fed.

Now this pet eats everything --
Whatever you can shovel or fling.
It snaps up all your old cardboard boxes
Your empty cans and your stuffed foxes.

And wonder of wonders! The very flower
You have given something to devour
Sprouts on the spot a luscious kind of pear
Without pips, and you can eat it there.

So this is a useful pet
And loyal if well-treat.
But if you treat it badly
It will wander off sadly

Till somebody with more garbage than you
Gives its flowers something to do.



The Earth-Owl and Other Moon-People was dedicated to Frieda and Nicholas Hughes
and published in 1963, the year of Nicholas's birth. Nicholas committed suicide on March
23rd 2009.
This reminds me of a poem in Crow. I think it's called The Love Pet?

The Socialists of Vienna

The rain is falling
steadily. Two by two,
a column of policemen marches
in the twilight. (Revolution!
Against our boots
strike,
flickering tongues!)
A company of soldiers
with machine-guns,
squad by squad, turns within a square
and marches down a street. (Revolution!
We are the greyhounds --
unleash us! --
to hunt these rabbits
out of the fields. Listen to me,
my two wives,
I have killed a man!)
Workingmen troop down the stairs
and out into the rain;
hurrah!
Revolution! (The gentleness of the deer
will never persuade the tiger from his leap.
Strong as a million hands,
what Bastille or Kremlin withstands us
as we march, as we march?)
Who minds the rain now?
How bright the air is;
how warm to be alive!
No children
in the hallways;
the stores closed,
not a motor car;
except for the rain,
how quiet.
Revolution!
Hurry to the power-house;
let the water out of the
boilers! The wires of the lamps burn dimly,
the lights in the houses
are out. Tie the red flag to the chimney,
but do not go through the streets,
where the steel -helmets have woven nets
of barbed wire;
bring guns and machine-guns
through the sewer
to each beleaguered house;
and send couriers throughout the land.
Arise, arise, you workers!
Revolution!

Put on your helmets;
troopers, tighten the straps
under your chins;
strap on revolovers;
tighten your belts,
and mount your horses; mount!
Send bullets flying through the panes of glass --
forward, trot!
I am Fey,
I am Prince Starhemberg;
behind me is The Empire --
the princes of Austria
and the captains of Germany,
armored tanks and armored aeroplanes,
fortresses and battleships;
before us only workingmen
unused to arms and glory!

The bones in his neck part as they hang him,
and the neck is elongated;
here is a new animal
for the zoo in which are
mermaid, centaur, shynx, and Assyrian cherub --
the face human, like their faces,
but sorrowing for a multitude,
hands and feet dangling
out of sleeves and trousers become too short,
and the neck a giraffe's --
as the neck of one who looks away from the patch of grass at his feet
and feeds among clouds should be.

Tell of it you who sit in the little cafes,
drinking coffee and eating whipped cream
among the firecrackers of witticisms;
tell of it you who are free to gallop about on horseback
or to ride in automobiles, or walk in gardens,
who say, Do not speak of despondency --
or any ugliness;
"Wie herrlich leuchtet
Mir die Natur!
Wie glaenzt die Sonne,
Wie lacht die Flur!"*

Karl Marx Hof, Engels Hof,
Liebknecht Hof, Matteotti Hof --
names cut in stone to ornament a house
as much as carving of leaves or fruit,
as any bust of saint and hero;
names pealing out a holiday among the ticking of clocks! --
speak your winged words, cannon;
shell with lies, radios,
the pleasant homes --
the houses built about courtyards
in which were
the noise of trees and of fountains,
the silence of statues and of flowers;
cry out, you fascists,
Athens must perish!
Long live Sparta!

Charles Reznikoff
Separate Way

image Mahnmal gegen Krieg und Faschismus
(Monument against War and Fascism)
photographed by sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hrdlicka

*How splendidly Nature is alight before me! How the sun is shining, how the meadows laugh! -- Goethe

Hero and Leander (extract)

Heaven's winged herald, Jove-born Mercury,
The self-same day that he asleep had laid
Enchanted Argus, spied a country maid,
Whose careless hair, instead of pearl t' adorn it,
Glistered with dew, as one that seemed to scorn it.
Her breath as fragrant as the morning rose,
Her mind pure, and her tongue untaught to glose,
Yet proud she was (for lofty pride that dwells
In towered courts is oft in shepherds' cells),
And too too well the fair vermillion knew,
And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew
The love of every swain. On her this god
Enamoured was and with his snaky rod
Did charm her nimble feet, and made her stay,
The while upon a hillock down he lay,
And sweetly on his pipe began to play,
And with smooth speech her fancy to assay,
Till in his twining arms he locked her fast,
And then he wooed with kisses, and at last,
As shepherds do, her on the ground he laid,
And tumbling in the grass, he often strayed
Beyond the bounds of shame, in being bold
To eye those parts which no eye should behold.
And like an insolent commanding lover,
Boasting his parentage, would needs discover
The way to new Elysium; but she,
whose only dower was her chastity,
Having striv'n in vain, was now about to cry,
And crave the help of shepherds that were nigh.
Herewith he stayed his fury, and began
To give her leave to rise; away she ran,
After went Mercury, who used such cunning,
As she, to hear his tale, left off her running.
Maids are not won by brutish force and might,
But speeches full of pleasure and delight.
And, knowing Hermes courted her, was glad
That she such loveliness and beauty had
As could provoke his liking, yet was mute,
And neither would deny nor grant his suit.


(lines 386-424)
Sorry -- don't know the details about the image but I found it here: http://arturovasquez.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/lovers/

Stray (beneath the books of winter)

http://www.moriapoetry.com/mcintyre.html

Sally Ann McIntyre

Going to Alaska

The jacaranda are wet with color,
and the heat is a great paint brush
lending color to our lives,
and to the air, and to our faces;

but I'm going to Alaska
where there's snow to suck
the sound out from the air.

Up, yes, in the branches,
the purple blossoms,
go pale at the edges;
there is meaning in the shifting
of the sap, and I see in them traces
of last year, but then they hadn't grown
so strong, and their limbs
were more like wires. Now they are cables.
thick and alive with alien electricity,

and I am going to Alaska,
where you can go blind
just by looking at the ground,
where fat is eaten by itself
just to keep the body warm.

Because from where we are now,
it seems, really, that everything is growing
in a thousand different ways;
that the soil is soaked through
with old blood and with relatives
who were buried here, or close to here,
and they are giving rise to what is happening.
Or can you tell me otherwise?

I am going to Alaska, where the animals can kill you,
but they do so in silence, as though if no-one hears them,
then it really won't matter. I am going to Alaska.
They tell me that it's perfect for my purposes.

John Darnielle
from Taboo VI - The Homecoming.

Hear the song at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCR6DTbcpik&NR=1

Image courtesy of David Tuffley at http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~davidt/redlandbay/trees.htm

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

E.E. Cummings
in is 5 (1926)

Sculpture: Laughing Woman by Medardo Rosso (1858-1928)
http://www.tate.org.uk/collection/T/T04/T04846_9.jpg

Mise Eire

I won't go back to it --

My nation displaced
into old dactyls,
oaths made
by the animal tallows
of the candle --

land of the Gulf Stream,
the small farm,
the scalded memory,
the songs
that bandage up the history,
the words
that make a rhythm of the crime

where time is time past.
A palsy of regrets.
No. I won't go back.
My roots are brutal:

I am the woman --
a sloven's mix
of silk at the wrists,
a sort of dove-strut
in the precincts of the garrison --

who practices
the quick frictions,
the rictus of delight
and gets cambric for it,
rice-coloured silks.

I am the woman
in the gansy-coat
on board the 'Mary Belle',
in the huddling cold,

holding her half-dead baby to her
as the wind shifts East
and North over the dirty
water of the wharf

mingling the immigrant
guttural with the vowels
of homesickness who neither
knows nor cares that

a new language
is a kind of scar
and heals after a while
into a passable imitation
of what went before.

Eavan Boland
1987

WTF

Hurry up and eat
We roll out in 20
Tonight just doesn't seem right
The feeling won't shake
Can't smoke enough cigarettes
Why are these vehicles fucking with me
I shine my spotlight, he pulls over
The other stomps on the gas
Oh fuck, another car bomb
I shoot
Someone shouts, This one's dead
At camp people shake my hand
I'm just upset and pissed
It was a doctor
The investigation said it was done by the books
I ask myself, What the fuck kind of war is this

Noah Charles Pierce
(1983-2007)
suicide

See other poems here:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/sites/afterdowningstreet.org/files/noahpoems.pdf

Soldier Smoking a Pipe
by Franz van Mieris (1662)
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.worcesterart.org/Images/Collection/Photos/Acquisitions

Pick a Bale of Cotton

Pick a Bale of Cotton

Jump down, turn around to pick
a bale of cotton;
Jump down, turn around to pick
a bale a day.*

Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton,
Oh Lordy, pick a bale a day.

That nigger from Shiloh can pick
a bale of cotton,
That nigger from Shiloh can pick
a bale a day.

Me and my gal can pick a bale of cotton,
Me and my gal can pick a bale a day.

Me and my wife can pick a bale of cotton,
Me and my wife can pick a bale a day.

Me and my buddy can pick
a bale of cotton,
Me and my buddy can pick
a bale a day.

Me and my poppa can pick
a bale of cotton,
Me and my poppa can pick
a bale a day.

Takes a might big man to pick
a bale of cotton,
Takes a might big man to pick
a bale a day.

NOTE: A bale of cotton weighs about
a quarter of a ton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE9QYkkxyVQ

Brown Circle

My mother wants to know
why, if I hate
families so much,
I went ahead and
had one. I don't
answer my mother.
What I hated
was being a child,
having no choice about
what people I loved.

I don't love my son
the way I meant to love him.
I thought I'd be
the lover of orchids who finds
red trillium growing
in the pine shade, and doesn't
touch it, doesn't need
to possess it. What I am
is the scientist,
who comes to that flower
with a magnifying glass

and doesn't leave, though
the sun burns a brown
circle of grass around
the flower. Which is
more or less the way
my mother loved me.

I must learn
to forgive my mother,
now that I'm helpless
to spare my son.

Louise Gluck
1990

Image Anatomy of a Flower
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tulip/spring2008

Commission

Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-racked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.

Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the women entailed.

Go to those who have delicate lust,
Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted,
Go like a blight upon the dullness of the world;
Go with your edge against this,
Strengthen the subtle cords,
Bring confidence upon the algae and tentacles of the soul.

Go in a friendly manner,
Go with an open speech.
Be eager to find new evils and new good,
Be against all forms of oppression.
Go to those who are thickened with middle age,
To those who have lost their interest.

Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family --
Oh how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together!
It is like an old tree with shoots,
And with some branches rotted and falling.

Go out and defy opinion,
Go against this vegetable bondage of the blood.
Be against all sorts of mortmain.

Ezra Pound
1916

image from http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bonsai4me.com/Images/ATBerberisProgressionSeries/berberis%25201206.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATBerberisProgressionSeries.htm&usg=__CYyKYntSPBq9cr2Bxl9pdoiX6w8=&h=488&w=500&sz=63&hl=en&start=32&tbnid=o2WgTMmQfrC1CM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dold%2Btree%2Bnew%2Bshoots%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN