476. Heartaches (a wee shortie)

Heartaches
are like bonebreaks:
You'll never walk again!
You think it's true,
but then you do.

475. War

A few friendly farts around the table
do not come amiss, a new friendship starts
before language kicks in. Most of the lads
of whatever nation, of whatever station,
laugh at the same jokes. We are yokels.
Wars, I think, are made easy to start
because of male simplicity of the heart.

We need women to keep us sane,
balanced, keeping to the narrow lane
of things that matter. And as we become
older and fatter, the truth sinks in,
that it is young men with their flags unfurled,
heavy on the booze and with nothing to lose,
that make revolutions in this world.

474. Cahirciveen, 1720

False friends beam slyly in the taproom
and thy name is now unknown to me,
thou Jezebel! The very doors of hell
yawn wide in a field in daylight
my bruiséd soul to greet. A breeze
whistles through the woods, and I,
who once would fawn, dissemble fright,
who would once yield, go weak in my knees,
go light of head, run fey in your sight,
am but a warp in a winding sheet.

473. Game Suspended

Lounging about, as we do,
in that limbo-like, that lingering time
where nothing happens, the now and then
where we find ourselves asking
which constructs are actually true,
and which but gatherings of desire,
simple deep derivative desires,
or if or whether or when
we retreat or get physically flung
arse over tip, chest over chin,
to be lost without trace, again to begin,
or to be stretched and hung, alone, apart,
shuttled off in rattling old cattle cars
to the rag and bone shop of the heart.

472. Mister Death Leans Down

When your bones are mangled
people try, they try to be so gentle,
but every movement hurts: such activity,
many many people talking all at once,
all of them in a foreign language.

Think, stay conscious, concentrate!
What … what happened? One minute
cruising along, iPod on the speakers,
last lesson coming up at this company
and then a ten-day break to follow.

Next thing Mister Death leans down,
skids you neatly into the oncoming lane
and lets you watch for a second or two:
you know exactly what’s going to happen
and not a damn thing you can do.

The guy who hit me was not a truck
I’m glad to say, and I’m also glad to say
he wasn’t hurt himself. His first question
as I dangled out the door, presumably dying,
was ‘Hey, dude, do you have insurance?’

I nodded. Bummer, I’ll be late for work.
I tried to lie down, just take a little nap,
when total strangers started slapping me
and behaving in a very impolite, a most
un-Japanese manner. Sirens, sirens …

-------------------------------------------

Apologies. I’m still trying to make sense of this thing.
I’ve been in hospital for the last six weeks
(which would explain the blessed silence).
In time, I’m told, everything will more or less work again
and there will be no permanent physical damage.
I’m not fishing for sympathy here – you’ll know that if you know me.
But I still cannot figure out what the hell happened!!
Being a Celt, no matter how many generations along,
I am only half-Christian and aware of the Other World.
I look upon this as a direct and painful warning.
I have been doing something seriously wrong in my life.
Apparently, I’ve been given one last chance to fix it.

471. Inennan

I want to hold you
but I cannot hold you …
not in front of a policeman
not when the lights are turning green
not when people are looking
not when your eyes are shining
not when a cough is coming
not when a war still rages
not when the climate changes
not when children are sad and hungry 

unless perhaps when it rains
and we can smile in one another’s eyes
and hide under a big umbrella 

but the people will bump into us
from before and behind and say,
move along, move along, move along!

抱きしめたい
保持することはできません...
ない警官の前で
交通信号灯が.緑色に回っていない場合
人々が探しているいないとき
あなたの目は輝いていない場合
咳が来ていない場合
ないときは、戦争はまだ激怒
ていない場合の気候変動
子供は悲しいと空腹時ではなく

ない限り、多分雨が降るとき
互いの目には笑うことができる
大きな傘の下に

人々は上がっていきます
前と後ろと言うから
移動する移動する移動する 。

470. The Master

Last in, first out
Is what they used say
In the factories: the layoffs
Sensed before they happened.

And in Belfast, at H & W
Where they built the Titanic,
The Taigs would go first.
The natural order.

I think more and more
Of Louis MacNeice.
Of all the poets in the world,
He is the closest to my soul.

Protean, entirely unimpressed,
Shouldering the black guilt of Ulster
And simultaneously shrugging it off,
Every poem a new beginning.

Auden felt awe as his powers failed.
Spender more or less had given up.
Only Dylan Thomas ploughed on,
Sound-intoxicated, incomprehensible.

Larkin, I think, had little to say.
Heaney, Longley and Paul Muldoon
Owe Northern debts of gratitude,
As so, in my Southern way, do I.

A sample of MacNeice:http://dublinerinjapan.blogspot.jp/2004/07/louis-macneice-dangerously-good-poem.html

469. Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Beannachtaí na Feile Padraig (Happy Saint Patrick's Day) to all my friends -- and to any enemies as well, what the hell! ... since it's not really any specific day any more a but an extended period every year in the middle of March when you get to thinking about the country and not just what it means to those of us who were born there but for all the people of Irish ancestry all over the world and for the people of any nationality or ethnic background who can tune into the music and the craic and get a sense of what this small country poised between Europe and America has come to add to the ongoing story of our human race, adding great moments of hilarity and good cheer in spite of a history that could have crushed any people less resilient: A pity beyond all telling, Yeats tells us, is hid in the heart of love.

Mary Black:   A Song for Ireland

468. Réimse Beag Glas (the little green field)

Five thousand feckin years if it’s a day
and would yeh look at them cows, shitting,
bedamn, on the same old lumpy grass.

They do be your fields now, Donal Óg,
and your dear departed father’s before you
although the oul granddad wouldn’t have had

tuppence three farthing to rub together,
God between us and harm, and the wife
with a tongue on her that could slice lemons.

You’ll be speaking of me Daddy’s mam?
Ahh, sure, what if I am, Donal my dear,
and she the pride of all five counties?

You’ll be careful now in your choice of words.
I will of course. I will indeed. Would you
look over beyond now at Tim Daly’s tree

where the rooks, unclean birds, do be rising
with the harsh rattling call of their kind,
it’s as though they remember the day.

They were there themselves on the day
or their grandsires surely, swooping down
on the men in the boots and red coats

as young Timmy Daly swung from the bough
with the blessings and thanks of Farmer George,
that fat bloated king of the English.

That day is long gone, Donal Óg,
as we live in the comfort of a difficult peace.
There should be some thought of our children.

Boy children grow up to be men
and the girls grow up to give birth to men:
I fear this business will never be finished.

It is anger and memory that disturbs your soul,
mo chara, mo fear álainn. Sit thee down. Turn
away from this strange and bitter mystery.

There is peace in the land, mo buachaill ghile,
where the cows are patriotic Irish cows,
dropping their Irish dung on Irish fields.

But there are caves and caverns beneath
where the unsung dead cry out for vengeance
and you can hear them in your dreams!

I can hear them clearly, Donal mo chara,
had I a mind to listen, which I do not advise,
for they would lead us on to fear and madness.

Ours is a green and lovely land
carried to the brink of its own destruction
by sióga dona, by the ghosts of history.

Donal, Donal, put your eyes
on the field . Good man yerself.
Put your eyes on the cows. Put your

mind in their minds, was it five thousand
years you said? Aye, that was the figure,
with five thousand more on the way.

-----------------------------------------------
Glossary of Irish terms:

Donal Óg -- young Donal, lit. Donal the Young.
mo chara, mo fear álainn -- my friend, my lovely man.
mo buachaill ghile -- my gallant boy.
sióga dona -- evil spirits.

467. The Conversion to Islam of Conor MacArt (Part 7)

An Comhshó a Ioslam de Conchubhair Mac Airt

Níl aon chairde ar nós an sean-cairde.
Tá siad na cinn chun grá agus an brón.*
---------------------------------------

Holy fuckin Jaysus, here am I in Jerusalem,
dragged out from the dripping tunnels below
with nary a penny to my name. Mazeltov,
says some hairy beaming Jewish gentleman
as he wields a large and rusty Turkish scimitar.
Your most devoted, says I, bending the knee,
I am on an archaeological quest, I am a man of science,
and I greatly fear my poor servant has perished …
Not in the least, a miracle, he is alive, alive!
God Almighty, so he is. My misery is complete!
There he sits, beaming, fackinellmytethortuwozagonner!
I smile weakly, what will I tell O’Sullivan? I collapse.

Days later, on a diet of locusts and honey, I revive
and review the circumstances. Our secret mission
to undermine, to betray these hirsute Hebrews has failed,
and I turn to a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup.
Eat, eat, eat, cries Rachel, the moustachioed burly mother
of Nathan, the man of the ancient Turkish sword. You are
most kind, says I, lapping it up like a kitten. Just imagine,
she chortles, a man of science in these unsettled days!
Haha, I agree, reaching for my spectacles which I cannot find,
then my bruised and bursting head, still, Thank God, on my shoulders.
You are most kind, dear lady, I murmur, most kind indeed,
but I realise my rapier and pistol are no longer to be seen.

As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains
I met with Captain Farrell and his money he was counting
with your Ring-Dumma-Doo-Dumma-Da, no chicken soup
in those easy breezy days. Eat, eat, says the urgent Rachel.
I slurped it to the dregs, (mmm, lovely!) reconsidering my situation.
I was a spy, let’s face it, more or less caught in the act,
under the orders of the sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent,
to whom God should take a spanner, the only living man who could
cause me to shiver more than the murderous Shane O’Neill.
Shane was far far away and gone from the present shenanigans,
thanks be to God, Saint Patrick, and their respective holy mothers:
I never want to behold those mad light eyes again!

A shudder ran through me. You can’t help that thinking of Shane,
and doesn’t the oul wan, Rachel, run up to me with arms outstretched,
poor poor little boy, you are cold, knocking me over with her bosoms,
when Nathan pops in the door, all very bright and cheery: Konbor!
which is what they do be calling me, God bless their little brains,
I have with me your loyal servant, he is so so worried about you!
and in walks Bert, the shifty-eyed blackmailer, the bold rapparee,
Appytaseeyerinthepink , says he, reporting for duty, Sahh! We ogle,
if such a thing can be said, one another. Orrlbleedindeadthebleedinbloighters,
he remarks complacently. So much for the men. Orlbutyouandme. Sahh!
Very good, sergeant, see to my kit would you? Orlloikefackingorninnit?
What? I beg your pardon! Fackingorninnit? Just you and me, sah. Sahh!

Oh, God … (to be continued)

------------------------------------------------------

* There are no friends like old friends.
They are the ones to bring you love and sadness.

Links to previous sections below:

Why bother? It's a bit of a story, that's why, and both Mr Dickens and Mr Thackeray have departed this world. A pair of Englishmen, to be sure, no fault of their own, but stories like theirs still need to be told.

Dubliner in Japan: 428. The Conversion to Islam of Conor MacArt
Dubliner in Japan: 429. The Conversion to Islam of Conor MacArt (part 2)
Dubliner in Japan: 430. The Conversion to Islam of Conor MacArt (Part 3)
Dubliner in Japan: 432. The Conversion to Islam of Conor Mac Art (part 4)
Dubliner in Japan: 433. The Conversion to Islam of Conor Mac Art (part 5)
Dubliner in Japan: 433.5 The Conversion to Islam of Conor MacArt (Part 6)

466. Crossover

My life is in your hands, she said,
and my first ignoble thought, forgive me,
was why was she saying this?

We’d only known each other three weeks
and she was a cute lovely girl and all that
but we hadn’t, umm, you know … done anything?

My father comes from the old country, she said,
and he is so strict. My mother, she is worse!
My older brothers, Daoad and Amir,
they always always beat up my boyfriends
and I hate them! But with you I feel good.

Me, I wasn’t feeling ecstatic at this news,
for I had had a glimpse of Daoad and Amir,
those hairy gorillas, and could only imagine
what the father was like. Never mind the mother.

Ehh, do you have any sisters, says I, to move
this dreadful family saga along. Oh, she dead.
She betrayed my cousin so my uncle kill her.

Oh, really?
Yah, my father he must apologise.
Anyway, you kiss me now?

My lips for some reason ran dry,
some temporary saliva failing, and I
took a rather quick look around …

O God! Is that Daoad (or Amir) outside
looking in the window? No, a shadow.
I’m starting to have feelings about shadows.

Look, Zaynab, I really like you a lot …
I know. I am a treasure. Many boys want me.
But you, you don’t only want my body,
you love my mind. I like that in you.

Ah, of course. To be sure.

I like you, you are Irish boy, Irish boys
are strong and brave, good lovers.
I dart a glance again at the window.

O God, that’s him!
doubt without a Daoud,
no, I mean … emm, I need to visit the gents!

Of course, my dear. Don’t be long.
Where is the back door? Unseen by me,
Amir arrives, smiles at his sister,
and picks up my half-finished pint of beer.

Gone then, is he? O like a puff of wind.

465. The Facebook Poem

 ( aka Cellphone Sally)

Perhaps a coupla hundred contacts
on Facebook, then, as if you could tell
who or what the hell. Might know, see,
37 of these people, but as for the rest,
they pop up as a constant surprise.
Could be for the best, this ebb and flow,
day to day before your eyes, as through
anew this jagged world you come and go:
try not to be cruel, try to be kind!
Wannabe friends? Oh, I don't mind.
So ... that's how you collect all these
stunningly gorgeous Japanese women
(well, according to their own photographs)
who ding on you but don't have to meet you??
Telecomputers become their social tool
which for them is ... so exactly cool,
it tickles their feminine mystique:
don't touch, don't see, don't speak!
Look, look at them on the trains and buses
tap-tap-tapping with polished nails,
having a great time altogether! I think
if smartphones had a disposable stiff extension
for discreet use, say, in a shopping mall
(come on Samsung, come on Apple!)
there'd be no further need for marriage,
no further need for lads at all.

464. Moon Faraway Person Thinking

Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away

望月懷遠

海上生明月， 天涯共此時。
情人怨遙夜， 竟夕起相思。
滅燭憐光滿， 披衣覺露滋。
不堪盈手贈， 還寢夢佳期。


Over the sea the moon
brightens heaven, brings
to separated hearts
thoughts in the night.

It is no darker
though I blow out my candle.
It is no warmer
though I put on my coat.

So I leave my message
with the moon,
and I go to my bed
hoping for dreams.

-- 張 九 齡 Zhang Jiuling
http://en.wikipedia....i/Zhang_Jiuling

Translator's note: I hope your computer is able to read and transmit the Chinese characters of the original poem, if for no other reason than that they are so concise and elegant! A difficulty arises in all translations from the Chinese (or Japanese) in that the brevity and directness of the style causes all kinds of technical problems in attempts to reproduce the content in English while adhering to the driving spirit of the poem. The mental worlds surrounding our varied languages and ways of thinking are different, of course, and never more so than when dealing with faraway cultures. Although this poem was composed more than a thousand years ago it is as fresh as the day it was written! You will notice there are three 4-line stanzas in the translation whereas the original is composed of 4 separate stanzas made up by each horizontal line divided into two sections of five Chinese characters apiece. The first stanza of the translation actually combines the first two stanzas of the original, i.e the first half of the poem. This was done on purpose by me in order to maintain the velocity as well as the content of the poem ... and if you can understand that, welcome to the world of translation!

463. Rewrites

The road was a ribbon of moonlight across the purple moor
when the highwayman came riding, riding up to my front door.
Sirrah, raged he, in tones of dudgeon and high incense:
no more delay, I pray, please pay for your TV license!

***

Come pensive nun, devout and pure,
sober, steadfast and demure.
Let's go out and have some fun:
we'll dance the fandango and the tango,
and I'll have you home by half past one.

***

There is sweet music here which softer lies
thn tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
when it gets too much I make it stop
and switch my iPod to hip hop.

***

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
with ulullating cries they surrounded my car,
and sold me five rugs and a bug in a jar.

***

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I think of fine ladies I have caught
and hope the latest won't be the last.

***

I will arise now and go to Inisfree,
and a cabin I will build there of clay and wattles made;
nine whiskey stills shall I have there, all made just for me,
smoke dope in a purple glow, then doze off in the shade.

***
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
And I remember how he said to me,
you can't take pleasure with you,
you must take your pleasures now,
with girls brought in from Vegas
and gamblers from Macau.

***

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
This much is surely plain.
Half-serious, half glitter and tinsella,
A man is in fact a peninsula.

462. Sussex

Down the village street she goes,
past Tescos, past the illiterate graffiti
delimiting horizons. Wee Timmy & Sheila
are away with the mother, never him,
and beyond is the sea, Portsmouth!
I’ll join the Navy, lose ten stone
and stop shopping at the Paki corner store,
every lost ounce will keep Britain free
as once it were before.

Now the French are over the sea ,
behaving themselves,
and the good old days are o’er;
I can’t go running down the docks
like I did with Maggie and Silly Liz
nor act the happy whore. My life
will change, you’ll see, and a range
of opportunities, those things

will open out before me, no more
charity communities, no more
pill-popping take on life. I will
attack France, they seem to need it,
and they are right across the water
within, you might say, spitting distance.
Never mind Iraq and Afghanistan
so far the fuck away you’d be having no interest.
You need wars with people you know.

461. Wessex

A parliament of rooks complain
vociferously, tut-tutting like indignant counsellors
while their carrion cousins, irrepressible crows
swoop and dive like Spitfires: an unpopular
breed of bird, I know, but dashing fliers
with a delinquent sense of fun.
Stand and watch them on a winter’s day.

I love the way, when grounded, they hop,
hoppity-hop, exactly like crotchety pensioners,
and then take off soaring into the sky,
with a kyaa –kyaa, such a contemptuous cry,
and then they drop a little poop on your windscreen.
Bastards! You can’t help but swear and admire
these rock’n’rollers of the avian world.

The broads are soggy
under grey December skies.
The grass rises in tufts and clumps
making for hard walking, making you
glad to be wearing your Wellies again,
with your old Army jacket, your corduroys,
that sense of being safe from the cold.

Tottle! (Aristotle), the setter comes to heel
with his sad, injurious, accusing eyes:
silly boy, that was never any bloody rabbit!
(And just how the hell would you know, sir?)
he says, clear as a bell, in doggy language,
and you give him a rough pat, but he shakes you off,
and lopes loosely, wonderfully across the field.

Dear old boy! Ten years since he was a tiny pup
out of Mirabelle, and she was one of those seven
tiny little things my sister and I … my sister!
Well, those were those days with the Commander
and my Mum, and holidays from that wretched school,
and as I trudge towards the sturdy old familiar house
I think of the warming dram, of the cold welcome.

460. Yoshitakamura

Darling girl.
Do you care what they may say?

Sweetness and light. Shadows.
How it all comes together.

One last kiss ...
a cool firmness
slowly yielding.

Kyrie eleison.

You are so young.

Those tear stains on your cheeks.
That steadiness in your eyes.
Well, then.

Let us go into dark eternal night
together, smiling bravely,
holding hands.

------------------------------------------------

This sort of thing happens over here quite a lot. Generally the lovers are married people -- not to one another, that is -- or else the very young whose families are adamantly opposed to the love choice of a son or daughter, usually the girl.

459. Samhain

Coinnigh fós mo chroí amaideach,
ní cúis náire dom os comhair na ndaoine.
Impigh mé de tú, mé a iarraidh seo.

Be quiet now my foolish heart,
bring me no shame in the eyes of others.
I ask this of you, I implore you.

Lá go leor agus oíche tar éis a ritheadh
i measc daoine nach bhfuil mo chuid féin a -
Fós tá siad chun bheith amhlaidh.

Many are the days and nights gone by
among this people who are not my own -
Yet they have become so.

Chreid mé mo shaol go raibh mianach,
agus tá sé seo fíor ag amanna áirithe
ach nach bhfuil ag amanna eile.

I had a thought my life was my own,
and this is a true thing at certain times
but at other times not so.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This is not "classical" Irish, more like a stab in the dark - a poke in the right direction. Gaelgeori (the language purists) will be coming after me like the Morríghan. I'll stay a skip and a step ahead: the story of my life so far.

Samhain had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. November marked both an ending and a beginning in the eternal cycle.

The pronunciation (for you language freaks) is "saah-wan". Feb. 1 is "Imbolg"; May 1 is "Bealtaine" (bell-tawn); Aug. 1 is "Lunasa" (loon-asa). Instant Celts!

458. Hamamatsu

Customize your own digital slideshow

457. armistice

No blinding light of tropical day
nor secrecy of northern night
can further mask our desolation:

an idea is not responsible
for the lives of those who hold it.

Flotsam, jetsam,
such ribald anarchic terms.

Death was kind to you:
a scant scattering of mourners,
myself among them.

The garbled service
was dismal. Predictably so.
I could hear your dry chuckle.

I shall attend your funeral, old boy,
or else you shall attend mine.
I remember you saying that.

People live
as long as other people live
who still remember.