355. Fellow Travellers

The king was in his counting house
counting all his money;
Jock and I were chained in the dungeon,
not the least bit funny.

The queen was in the parlour
eating cakes and honey;
Jock and I were on bread and water
and our sores had gone all runny.

This is what you get
for being a Celtic Communist,
lost back in the Middle Ages:
tossed into cages, burnt at stakes,
bound in chains with wife and wains,
hurled into nearby lakes.

We preached the Third Stage of Capitalism
while the world was concerned with Papal Schism,
we were a bit, perhaps, before our time
(garrotted, impaled, then buried in lime)
but people need to be told things.

Jock was a Seeker, a fiery speaker,
"Guid wha' tha haw an tschock na lings!"
he'd cry to the gathering gawking crowds
and me, I'd translate, open the roiling clouds
to expose the shining sun, I was the one
that had a way with the local lingo,
this guttural sputtering spitting speech
these brutes had cobbled together ... bingo!
and called the Ingurish tongue.

When the castle in time was attacked
Jock and I were the first among
the prisoners who escaped: the queen,
I'm happy to say, was repeatedly raped,
incessantly, in fact, to her heart's content,
and subsequently went to live in Ghent
with the gentleman-rapist best endowed.

Her husband, the king, did not fare so well:
fearful, tearful, and thoroughly cowed
he was hastened on his way to hell,
garrotted, impaled, and buried in lime,
dug up, hanged, then burnt at the stake,
as an afterthought slung into a lake.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Jock and I married two bonny sisters,
we set up a tea shop in Ayre.
Damn the speeches, no more emotional fits,
we've become Democratic Socialists.
The girls run the shop, God bless 'em,
we smoke our pipes in the garden.

354. OISÍN - The Irish Band!

Hello there Lads & Lassies ... Conas Atá Sibh?
Greetings (beannachtaí) from the Best Irish Band in Hamamatsu!!

Then.....(1993)


And now ......

See if you can spot the three original members. Not that hard! (If you click on the photos they'll expand to Full Screen.)

Contagious

Trudi
should have died three hundred times
if her friends, good Germans,
hadn't saved her:
she was a Jewish child
in Hitler's Deutschland.
We are all
somebody's kid
and me, I'm a jigaboo.
I'm a black man
hiding in a white skin.

353. Roisín Dubh (The Dark Rose)

A Róisín ná bíodh brón ort fé'r éirigh dhuit:
Tá na bráithre 'teacht thar sáile 's iad ag triall ar muir,
Tiocfaidh do phárdún ón bPápa is ón Róimh anoir
'S ní spárálfar fíon Spáinneach ar mo Róisín Dubh.

Little Rose, be not sad for all that hath behapped thee:
The friars are coming across the sea, they march on the main.
From the Pope shall come thy pardon, and from Rome, from the East-
And stint not Spanish wine to my Little Dark Rose.

Raise your spirits, little Rose, after all that has befallen:
the friars will come over the sea, they will bestride the waters,
and from the Pope will come blessings, from Rome and from the East,
and we shall drink Spanish wine for our Little Dark Rose .

Is fada an réim a léig mé léi ó inné 'dtí inniu,
Trasna sléibhte go ndeachas léi, fé sheolta ar muir;
An éirne is chaith mé 'léim í, cé gur mór é an sruth;
'S bhí ceol téad ar gach taobh díom is mo Róisín Dubh.

Long the journey that I made with her from yesterday till today,
Over mountains did I go with her, under the sails upon the sea,
The Erne I passed by leaping, though wide the flood,
And there was string music on each side of me and my Little Dark Rose!

(no changes here, spot-on)

Mhairbh tú mé, a bhrídeach, is nárbh fhearrde dhuit,
Is go bhfuil m'anam istigh i ngean ort 's ní inné ná inniu;
D'fhág tú lag anbhfann mé i ngné is i gcruth-
Ná feall orm is mé i ngean ort, a Róisín Dubh.

Thou hast slain me, O my bride, and may it serve thee no whit,
For the soul within me loveth thee, not since yesterday nor today,
Thou has left me weak and broken in mien and in shape,
Betray me not who love thee, my Little Dark Rose!

You have killed me, my bride, though it serves you no reason,
the soul within me has loved you from beginning to end,
yet you have despised my weakness, you have broken me down,
you should not turn on your lover, my Little Dark Rose!

Shiubhalfainn féin an drúcht leat is fásaigh ghuirt,
Mar shúil go bhfaighinn rún uait nó páirt dem thoil.
A chraoibhín chumhra, gheallais domhsa go raibh grá agat dom
-'S gurab í fíor-scoth na Mumhan í, mo Róisín Dubh.

I would walk the dew with thee and the meadowy wastes,
In hope of getting love from thee, or part of my will,
Frangrant branch, thou didst promise me that thou hadst for me love-
And sure the flower of all Munster is Little Dark Rose!

I would walk with you, on fields or through dew,
in hopes of your love, your recognition,
but you are like the blossoms of a tree, flowering, promising,
the flower of all Munster is my Little Dark Rose!

Beidh an Éirne 'na tuiltibh tréana is réabfar cnoic,
Beidh an fharraige 'na tonntaibh dearga is doirtfear fuil,
Beidh gach gleann sléibhe ar fud éireann is móinte ar crith,
Lá éigin sul a n-éagfaidh mo Róisín Dubh.

The Erne shall rise in rude torrents, hills shall be rent,
The sea shall roll in red waves, and blood be poured out,
Every mountain glen in Ireland, and the bogs shall quake
Some day ere shall perish my Little Dark Rose!

(no changes … I mean, what can you do with a verse like that?)

OK, now here is the celebrated 1840s translation ....

Dark Rosaleen
translated by James Clarence Mangan

O My Dark Rosaleen,
Do not sigh, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
They march along the deep.
There 's wine from the royal Pope,
Upon the ocean green;
And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!

Over hills, and thro' dales,
Have I roam'd for your sake;
All yesterday I sail'd with sails
On river and on lake.
The Erne, at its highest flood,
I dash'd across unseen,
For there was lightning in my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
O, there was lightning in my blood,
Red lightning lighten'd thro' my blood.
My Dark Rosaleen!

All day long, in unrest,
To and fro, do I move.
The very soul within my breast
Is wasted for you, love!
The heart in my bosom faints
To think of you, my Queen,
My life of life, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
My life, my love, my saint of saints,
My Dark Rosaleen!

Woe and pain, pain and woe,
Are my lot, night and noon,
To see your bright face clouded so,
Like to the mournful moon.
But yet will I rear your throne
Again in golden sheen;
'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
'Tis you shall have the golden throne,
'Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!

Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly, for your weal:
Your holy delicate white hands
Shall girdle me with steel.
At home, in your emerald bowers,
From morning's dawn till e'en,
You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
You'll think of me through daylight hours,
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My Dark Rosaleen!

I could scale the blue air,
I could plough the high hills,
O, I could kneel all night in prayer,
To heal your many ills!
And one beamy smile from you
Would float like light between
My toils and me, my own, my true,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
A second life, a soul anew,
My Dark Rosaleen!

O, the Erne shall run red,
With redundance of blood,
The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
And flames wrap hill and wood,
And gun-peal and slogan-cry
Wake many a glen serene,
Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,
Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
My Dark Rosaleen!


“Mangan’s version is much greater than the original poem. It is supposed to be Hugh O’Donnell’s address to Ireland at a time when the Irish chiefs were expecting help from Spain and from the Pope.” – says one among many commentators.

Non-Irish-speakers (and I'm not all that great at it!!) appear to believe Mangan's translation is the real thing. It’s dramatic, to be sure, overblown in the spirit of the age, but an entirely different poem. It has emotional power, granted, but in terms of translation from the Irish it is wildly inaccurate. In fact it comes across as a parody of the original. I’m stepping on to more dangerous ground by calling into question the translation by the beloved & sainted Padraig Pearse (the lines in italics above). Pearse led the 1916 Rebellion, founded the Republic I belong to, and got himself shot for Ireland. Parts of his translation cannot or even should not be faulted, but other bits need to be rescued from the outdated (poetic) English of the late 19th century Gaelic Revival. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Thomas Kinsella or O Connor or one of the other well-known native speakers has made a more recent translation but I haven't come across it ... yet.

Slán agus beannacht,
dedalus

352. Four Chinese Poems

I.

At the time of the rains
when you burst in upon me
here in my damp and narrow quarters
next to the temple, your arms
were full of new manuscripts
and I rejoiced to see you.

Unlike you, dear friend,
I have been unlucky in my career
and my wife, unused to privation,
has even seen fit to scold me.
I called for wine when you came
and that flea-bitten merchant refused me
until you threw golden coins
upon the table: after that flasks
of exquisite vintage arrived.

We drank deeply: we drank
and talked far far into the night
praising or laughingly destroying
every poem that had ever been written
since those happy days we shared
below the mountains of Dao-Shan
and you were good enough
to praise my unpublished works
and I was polite about the popular pieces
that have lately made you famous.

In the morning, when you departed,
you had a litter and four servants awaiting you
and when we smiled and embraced
I could see the neighbours looking on,
to many of whom I owe sums of money,
rather large sums of money,
and as I smiled and sent you on your way
I cursed my fate and also you.

II.

My father told me to stay in the house
with the women children and servants
while outside in clouds of rolling dust
came the victorious army of Bu Chao Lin.
I raced up to the roof to be with him
and found him wailing in a high keening voice
and pulling at his beard; he frowned at me
and then did a very strange thing, he tore off
his button cap, without which I had never seen him,
and began to stamp upon it. I stared, wide-eyed,
and decided to help my distraught father
by stamping on the cap he obviously disliked
with cries of joy and enthusiasm.
I will never forget the way he looked at me,
his eyes so round with horror.

III.

In the provincial town of Di Lai
I sat (again) for the examination
gave them Do Bai's song
and a clever critique
of Three Veils in the Morning
and sauntered away.

Of course they failed me.

But I had made travel plans
unknown to my father
and with the saved silver coins
hired a team of rough bearers
for the path up the mountain
then down to the valley
of P'ai To Shan.

Such sweetness in your eyes,
the plain and beguiling
roundness. I gasp,
I tell myself it doesn't matter
as I finger the folds
of my soft and elegant cloak.

IV.

Counsellor Zhang has four young daughters
each one more beautiful than the next
and I feel that I might carefully dare
to marry one of them, perhaps the one
least reminiscent of her father
whose bulging eyes and purple face
rather distressed me
at the ritual strangulation.

351. Baby Boomer

I couldn’t have chosen to be born
in a better town, but it was the wrong
bloody side of the river, thanks to my besotted
madly in love young parents, so totally
full of themselves and of the delights of young love
that they were not thinking ahead to important things
that mean so much today. Me granf’aar
had bought the solid still-standing family home
up there on the North Side, the right side, up by Sion Hill
in the middle of muddy fields, back in 1939,
and he planted potatoes in the garden during the War
and for some time after. Now the bricks themselves
are worth millions of pounds. Me mammy
popped me out, thoughtlessly, on the South Side
in Earlsfort Terrace just along from Stephen’s Green
and I was a Southside brat from the age of 3-minutes.

I play it down.

Bono at Obama’s Inauguration: he said, Mr. President, sir,
we are four Irish guys from the North Side of Dublin
and he was talking through his arse as usual
since only one of them lives there now: Larry Mullen.
I cringe every time I see Bono with Bush and Blair,
says Larry, the drummer, they are out and out war criminals.
Larry was in the (Northside) Artane Boys
but me, I wasn’t. We weren’t really Dublin working class,
more sort of of hopeful lower middle, one step away
from tenant farmers, from those who died in the Famine.
And with stubborn application and some dedication,
with no need to be be flash but out to make cash,
my Daddy paid out for a good education.

I was the first: three others followed (still close).
I was born in Ireland, woke up in the UK,
got sent to a school and ran away. I walked across London
to get away from them. I had a penny for bus-fare
but you had to hand it up so I walked. I was about five.
Me mam she was frantic, she hugged me far too tight,
but she sent me back the next day, and she knew,
she knew I’d be beaten. She said, “Remember, you’re Irish!”
I thought just being born in Ireland made you Irish.
I was starting to learn things.

My Dad, he was a clever man, he got work with the Yanks
and they sent him off to Germany. I grew up there
somewhere between the Americans and the Germans
(we got sent to American military schools)
and in the process I became totally, angrily Irish.
I got in fights with the Americans.
I got in fights with the Germans.
Finally, my Dad shippped me off to Ireland
to a dank medieval boarding school
where I could get into fights with the Irish instead.
No worries, it’s a settling-in process, nothing more,
you fight off and on for six months, try to win
a few more than you lose, and you never never cry,
so then, naturally, you become one of the lads.

The school was totally horrible but I rather liked it.
I can never read Dickens without thinking about it.
That’s where I learned how to really play rugby
in the fearless kamikaze Irish style, a Celtic death-wish
that opened many doors, especially, a bit later, in Texas.
But I tend to gallop, I fear, and get ahead of myself.
I was marginally feral but I wasn’t dumb
and the school had scholars as well as teachers.
They literally forced you to learn and think.
I had to memorise reams and reams of poetry, never mind
bloody Shakespeare (him too) but even Arnold and Hopkins
and they’d take a swing at you and beat you if you didn’t.
Couldn’t see that happpening today: it works, though.

I amazed everyone, got into ancient creaking Trinity College
but proceeded to go totally wild. I ended up in Istanbul
just when the Sergeant Pepper album came out. Thanks,
no really, thanks to traditional herbs it was memorable.
A Day in the Life? Whoopee. Then you floated out in the streets.
They say ( just who is they? ) if you remember the Sixties
you were not really there. I was there, all right. I remember.
I just remember things differently:

n I remember Radio Luxembourg, Radio Caroline
n I remember thinking the Kinks and the Who were pretty cool for new groups
n I remember jobs at 10 Pounds a week
n I remember being 17-years-old and in the Army
n I remember that first real kiss, the clean peppermint smell of her!
n I remember being on an Honour Guard for DeValera in front of the GPO
n I remember a pint of Guinness for 2 shillings (10P) in Kerry
n I remember climbing Nelson’s Pillar
n I remember the Pretty Things live
n I remember a lot of jovial ex-Nazis
n I remember dear Theo who fought in Poland, France, the Balkans and Russia with the Wehrmacht but who was still a lovely guy.
n I remember crowds rushing through the streets of London celebrating Israeli victory in the Six-Day War
n I remember Ludwig in Bavaria who also fought in Russia (well, attended the War) and incidentally saved my life.
n I remember an Israeli guy on a boat in the Gulf of Corinth mourning his dead comrades at the Battle of the Golan Heights
n I remember the blonde girl on the boat to Iceland
n I remember the Greek guy on the same boat who told me he “accidentally” killed three Turkish soldiers in Cyprus
n I remember the Eskimos (Inuit, whatever) in Iceland who kept getting flattened and killed by local traffic
n I remember Rome and Florence and Lisa, my first real love
n I remember Paris in May 1968
n I remember going to America for the first time
n I remember San Francisco and the dregs of Haight-Ashbury

O, I can remember a lot of things.
Some of them, of course, I'll never tell you.

It’s easy, you know, for the Irish to adjust to America
(not so easy for Americans to adjust to Ireland)
since the land has been well-ploughed, markers laid down
by former generations. Americans are simple and generous people
until it comes to business, power, and war.
There they tend to lose the run of themselves.
They seem to have such far-fetched delirious notions
about other countries and the people within them
that it leads to the wholesale murder of dusky foreigners
under the guise of “War” ; idiots, really,
but preferable to the Russians or the Chinese.

I like Americans. Cheerful, nice teeth.
Might not want to be one.

So, after Texas and the champion rugby team
and the Federal Judge’s daughter,
the University with its assassin’s tower, the gay landlord,
not least the hard-won speedy degree,
I survived the bus crash in Afghanistan
after the driver, wise man, ran like hell away.
They would have killed him, sure, it was his fault.
So there we were in the middle of nowhere
on the bleak snowblown road to Kandahar,
with the flakes still falling and bits of bodies all around
and you start to think, do I really need to travel?

Later, much later, in India,
when I was living in that little temple
and the priest would come by every morning at sunrise
I would shrivel my sleeping body like a corpse
there on the charpoy, so as not to disturb him.
I would pretend I was asleep. It was so hard to do.
I wanted to leap up and show him how to pray,
I wanted to say, stop fuckin mumbling, open your eyes,
every cell in my body was tingling. No, I never said
make a Sign of the Cross, ye heathen Hindoo.
Not at all , I felt that devotions were a form of slavery
and that the Power of God was within. I could feel it.
Well, at that time of my life I felt something.

Ser, nada mas
Es la ultima dichta

The local college boys came around
all so young and hopeful, just like a cloud of locusts,
you couldn’t get away from them. I considered them
a pestilence but I could see from the eyes of the locals
that I’d become a Man of Knowledge, a guru, not often
do the rich kids come into these dirty narrow streets.
It was a poor neighbourhood. I had a few local friends
but the hard-timers didn’t know what to make of me.
Seething with impatience I would have to listen
to these ignorant insolent kids with their bubbling Indo-English,
People would be peering in, cups of tea would arrive.
I hated these kids. I saw how they pushed my friends aside.
On top of that they were dumb. No Dickensian Irish schooling.

Ser, nada mas

Couldn’t get their heads around it. Neither, I suppose, could I.

Later, of course, I moved on.
I really can’t keep doing this.
I got lost in North Thailand for several months
and then moved on to Japan.

Now I have twenty or more stories about Thailand
a thousand more of Japan.

350. Beannachtaí na Feile Padraig!

Fad saol agat, gob fliuch, agus bás in Eirinn.
"Long life to you, a wet mouth, and death in Ireland."

Má dhéanann tu séitéireacht,
go ndéana tú séitéireacht ar an mbás,
má ghoideann tú, go ngoide tú croí mná;
má throideann tú, go dtroide tú i leith do bhráthar,
agus má ólann tú, go n-óla tú liom féin.

If you cheat, may you cheat death.
If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart.
If you fight, may you fight for a brother.
And if you drink, may you drink with me.

349. The Royal Houses of Europe

Puffed-up, befeathered and medal-bedecked,
they were an ornithologist's dream, they were such
a glittering gallery of elegant sartorial plumage
that even the great Audubon himself would have sighed
and sucked in his cheeks in a rush to capture them
with delicate brush strokes and quick flicks of colour.
They preferred, themselves, to be painted in heavy oils,
conferring, or so they thought, a sense of proper permanency.
Water colours would have been the proper fleeting milieu,
adept and nervous and skillful, vulnerable, not long lasting,
subtle impermanent shades that were apt to run in the rain.

Along the King's Road or among the street stalls of the Seine
or in the dark little shops of St. Petersburg or the Kaertnergasse,
sometimes in Salzburg or Bratislava or even sleepy Baden-Baden,
we can come across icons from this age, the flotsam and the jetsam
of a forgotten time, sad collections in old cardboard boxes:
faded medals , a concert programmes, a crumbling menu,
dog-eared picture postcards with royal portraits on the stamps.
Then a sigh may pass our lips, a nostalgic indifferent exhalation
much like an after-dinner belch, a sign of passing benediction
for a finished experience: but even the poor must eat tomorrow.

Beneficiaries of privilege had a good run but now the show is over,
their bloodlines a matter for antiquarians, for water-colourists,
for the slightly cracked groups who dream of royal restorations.
I'm not sorry they're gone. We have celebrities and movie stars
who feed the need for mass adoration, icons who fade out quickly,
fizzing up and out, like Roman candles, bright and impermanent.
They may behave badly, spend too much, yet rapidly disappear
without starting wars, without driving generations to genocide
in the name of family honour. So settle down in your graves
you Habsburgs and Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and Saxe-Gothas,
leaving a polite open space for the lingering Hanover/ Windsors.

The Inauguration

This seems to have been a custom among the Celtic tribes until the first few centuries of the modern era. The Doge of Venice "married" the sea by throwing in a ring to the passing waves from his richly-caparisoned gondola. The not-so-ancient Celts seem to have had a more direct approach ....


Conch shells, a blare of trumpets,
a flare of the band of pipes.
My poor old father is dead.
I am the new king.
I plan to get rid of
most of his old advisers.
In the meantime
I have to publicly fuck a horse.

There's no way out of it.
Tradition demands it.
I asked if I could choose a horse I liked
but was told to be patient,
that the priests would arrange it all.
Also, the poor bloody horse
has to show signs of satisfaction.

Dear God!

Here am I with my Latin and Greek,
a student of Heraclitus,
soaring along with Homer
but dependent on the sighs
of a large-arsed animal.
It gives a new meaning to riding.

My people are both fierce and loyal
and we face a bitter war:
strangers have come among us.
They look to me to lead them and I will
but I cannot be their king
until I fuck the horse.

I don't want to fuck a horse.
This is an ancient and stupid custom.
I don't want to shame myself
except with David, whom I love,
and that in private.

I shall have to marry
after the horse, of course,
one of the daughters of the O Cahans,
a sharp-nosed family of usurers
who count their money.

O God, here we go.
This day of dread has arrived.
The clansmen in bright colours and banners
are drunk already; wives and daughters
rush to set-aside tents.

I feel sick.

I am dressed in ancient robes
and dangling, tinkling, medallions.
They lead me out to a stage of new wood
in the centre of a grove of ancient oaks
and I beg my knees to carry me on.

A great cheer and the high-pitched Gaelic cry
thunders as I mount the steps.
I wave with all the enthusiasm
of a man condemned to the gallows
and wait, wait for the horse.

O God, here she comes,
a two-year-old mare from the looks of her,
as they whack and chivvy her up the ramp;
the poor thing looks as nervous as I feel
and I stroke her nose in sympathy.

Hello, darling.

Then there's the mumbling of the priests,
a suspicious breed in any association;
cold hard-eyed men with soft and flabby hands
who murmur in a code of memorized words,
who feed on fear and superstition.

One of these hooded halflings
looses the cords of my trousers
and I stand, ashamed, before my people.
He grins at me, the idiot, and I smack him hard
and a cheer comes up from the multitude.

O yes, we like violence.

Lugh of Light, Mananaan of the Sea,
come down, ye gods, and save me!
But the gods are silent. They are always silent.
I stand there, drooping, I cannot do this,
the innocent horse is also silent.

The whores of the town are sent up to me
to get me going, and a wave of laughter
ripples among the gathered throng;
mothers shade the eyes of their daughters
but laugh along with their husbands.

Do I want to be king?
I must be king: a terrible war, I know, is coming.

The whores do their business, I start to rise,
then mount the ladder behind the horse.
It has to be done.
It has to be done.
What shame.
What barbarism.

It doesn't take long,
I pretend it takes longer.
I raise my fist and scream,
Will you follow me to the death?
Yes, they roar, they will.
Yes, they roar, yes and yes and yes!
This is what I need.

Seanchaí

There are
five trees behind
my grandfather's house
two apple and three pear
and they shake, I swear
at different times

and as a child
I was frightened by them
when I went out
by night to do my business
as we had at the time
no indoor plumbing.

My grandfather had
along with most of rural Ireland
no electricity either
and the old oil lamps
trimmed at the wick
cast a soft and golden glow

and these little warm lights
would call to each other
across ancient fields
across the acres
and the stars would be fiercely burning
above in the inky sky.

Cold and clear
was the tingling water
with a faint little hint of lime
splashing down into sturdy barrels
from the rush of gurgling gutters
draining the rains of the roof

and in the byre there was Bridie
and her calf, I forget her name
then a dozen or more nervous old hens
that had no names at all
under threat from the swift red fox
coming over the fields.

In the harsh cold of winter
the neighbours would come by
and there'd be talk and news
of the children over beyond
in New York and Chicago
and Birmingham

and on the rare occasion
there'd be the quiet honour
of the shanachie's visit
when the word of mouth
would bring, failing death,
all of the neighbours in.

I was small, those times
only a wee little chit of a child
but I was big if I could live and grow
and remember. My grandfather
put his hard old hand upon my head
and squeezed my arm, he knew that

and there was the open fireplace
where sods of turf would be deftly thrown
on the burning red-green-orange flames
and the porter bottles, placed on the stones
would sweat and glisten, begin to expand
until the caps would go with a "pop"

and the men in their old battered hats
weather-beaten, chap-knuckled
would murmur to each other in Irish
while their women, in frocks and lipstick,
exchanged pointed pleasantries
until the shanachie shuffled in.

He was a shabby weedy little chap
until he raised his face and showed his eyes.
This story, he said, speaking in English
happened, it is true, a long time ago
but our people even then in the long-gone times
were the same as you, our people today

and then there was silence, a settling down
and for the next three or maybe seven hours
he carried us far and then further away
to the glow of the world we had come from
back to Niamh and Oisin, to King Niall
to the hall of the Red Branch Knights.

It was the magic of the voice that did it
just from the listening he could make you see
and I had no idea I was listening to stories
that were a thousand years old or more
and there was no single hint of cobwebs
nor of ancient creaking hinges; everything
everything was as fresh as clear as a drop of dew
on a trembling morning leaf.

17 Colville Terrace

Voices voices in the night,
sirens, the swish of passing cars;
drunks spill out from closing bars,
shouts, broken glass, another fight.

I shrug but show no pity
having heard these stories all before;
my thoughts flow to another shore,
distant serendipity.

There is no silence any more,
you cannot see stars from city streets;
syncopation, no pattern to the beats,
an itch, well-scratched, becomes a sore.

Even stark leafless trees look sad,
set out in rows away from fields;
hints of nature act as city shields
to keep things bearable, not so bad.

It's hard not to live where in fact you live,
reluctance surrounds all major change;
lives run in a swift but narrow range,
we yearn to receive but learn to give.

Hotel

I loved her beyond all reason
and then she went and bloody well died on me.
I stroll over to her grave and give it a kick.
Bitch. Some cops with cameras
believe they're hiding behind the headstones
but that's all right. 'Sall all right, orright?
I'll go over to Spain tomorrow
with my red and yellow bandana
and there I'll do what I canna
do here. No more of this useless bleedin shite,
I'll stay off the beer and act polite.
I'll buy ... a hotel. Yeah, what the hell!
Can I show you to your table, Mon Sewer?
Yeah, I'd like that:
a white dinner jacket, a red cummerbund,
a smile with the new white choppers,
a Heckler and Koch in my sock.
I'll need to keep the Brits out, got no clarse,
I'll dump them gobshites on their arse.
Ah, Britain, she's been good to me all the same
since I left burnt-down blasted Croatia
but the face you see is not the face
that smiled up from my mother's knee
when that dirty old brute she called my father,
before he legged it, told me something crystal true:
under the sun, my son, there is nothing new,
kick 'em in the balls before they kick you.
My father, the philosopher:
a litle tear, my dear, runs down my nose,
must be the cocaine, 95% pure,
unlike the crap I sell to the punters,
the ho's and shunters, the human manure.
Voila, Madame! Ho ho, Monsieur!
Is everyssing to your shatisfaction?
Ahem, ahem, more Chateau d'Yquem?
Buzzbuzz, hahaha, humhum.
She's young and flushed, he's old and fat,
an aristocrat: thus the world operates
and circulates, I know that. Watch me, chum.
I could do this job with my eyes closed.

Tongues

Living in a world of two or four languages
affords, for a child, an unplanned blessing;
I find, getting on, I am slowly confessing
to a heart-sore hankering
for childhood's continuous continual murmurs,
for the ould old-fashioned strangeness
of thinking in three parts
as if I had three hearts.

Intertwining interpretations
(lovely words, my dear, but lamentably insipid)
waylay the warp and the woof of childhood days;
even now, brisk and stern, interlocutions
hint at different means and different ways.

What needs a school
who, y' know, don't listen ya?
says my go-ahead sister
in her short tight skirt
and little else:
Needs Analysis, yay, my sister say,
you be so stupid?

Comes easy, sis. No worries.

She wants, she wants,
she wants,
and that sums up
my sibling sister.

America, Hummerrikah,
grotesque, grandiose, insane,
(I love it)
can do a number on your brain.
Very important people
in clomping large black shoes,
expensive teeth and spectacles,
toss Starbucks coffee containers
into government wastebaskets
and make plans for the future
of Afghanistan, Iraq, and maybe Iran,
and think nothing of it:
it's all so wistful.

You stand in the streets
of Kandahar, dear old Kandahar,
and the bullets they come whizzing by,
but if they really want to kill you
that's another thing.

I sing,
I chant my Sufi verses
and the guys laugh at me;
of a sudden there comes a jeep
in a whirlygig of dust--
jigga, jig, jig,
snakeyed and slick,
out of here quick, quick, quick.

Yes, I do get sick,
everyone does, even the locals,
stay away from the water,
stay away from the awful food,
expect the next attack,
watch your back;
watch your front and sides, too.

And when you feel blue
as you sometimes do
you can listen to God
or even better, I find, an iPod
and transport your damp
and heaving soul,
the very stitches in your britches,
towards a transitory temporary win,
a shot on the shifting goal.

If they treat you like shit
don't pay for the toilet;
just rely on the stuff you've kept in store
astride the ecstatic gaps of language,
around, beside, behind, before:
serenely wait for more.

O the water drips
into the sink:
plink, plink
plink.

Oui oui, compris,
je m'appelle
c'est Jezebel;
denada, denada,
so how's yer fadda?
Moi, je suis Yarnach
Ola! Chocky ar La
howdeedoo, konnichi wa;
Jai Ram, Jai Ram macushla,
yeh to bahot
BAHOT acchaa!

and ... Happy Birthday to Me!!
November the Ninth

343. School Trip to Okinawa

Double-click on any photo to get a full-screen picture; click the Back button to return to Blog.

1. The Inner Gateway to Shuri Castle

2. The Central Courtyard

3. Battle of Okinawa Memorial Park

4. Memorial Park

5. Memorial Park: strange to see your own surname -- a long-lost cousin?

6. Memorial Park: the Pacific Ocean meets the East China Sea.

7. Memorial Park: some of my homeroom students.

8. Himeyuri: 1000 paper cranes as a memorial to the high school girls forced to become nurses.

9. Himeyuri: entrance to the underground cave hospital.

10. Himeyuri: a rather bitter, disillusioned poem about getting pushed into the final battles.

11. The Chiraumi ("beautiful sea") aquarium

12. Chiraumi

13. Chiraumi

14. Chiraumi

15. Ryukyu Mura (Okinawan Folk Village)

16. Ryukyu Mura

17. R. Mura

18. R. Mura

19. R. Mura: Okinawan traditional dress.


20. R. Mura: water buff in charge of a "farmer".

21. R. Mura: the pottery centre.

22. R. Mura: the girls dress up as Okinawans.

Wikipedia Link to Okinawa

342. Sheldon Slithers into Socialism

Sallow shell-shocked Sheldon
having sold all his seashells
from the salty seashore, set out to sell
salt cellars to the sly but shy bank tellers
that in their lunch hours lounge and loaf
on the busy busy Bahnhofstrasse,
smug in their lives and proud of their wives,
who wheel pretty prams among the trams,
trams that go ringalingaling ... ding-ding
all along the Bahnhofstrasse.

One cannot be too rich in Zurich,
gnot among these gnarly gnomes
who repair, sedately, to stately homes
on the wholly hushed, the manicured hills,
that loom over the low-lit lapping lake.
There was a touch of the obscene in '17
in the amounts of money banks could make,
they could rake it in, inured to the din
of the booming guns across the border.
Switzerland thrives on Europe's disorder.

Unshaven Sheldon, shoes letting in rain,
was attracted to a light and lilting voice
overheard in a tavern, simple and plain,
and shook hands with its owner, James A. Joyce.
JJ was not in the market for seashells,
nor salt cellars, but was generous with his wine,
and frequently invited young Sheldon to dine.
They discussed Hermes Trimegistes
and the likely origin of the Scythians,
the Parthians, Persians, Medes and Midians.

Who is Leopold Bloom? Please tell me, Jim.
Aha, cackled Joyce, you'll hear more of him!
But come here to me, come here a chara,
have you heard of a chap called Tristan Tzara?
O yes, Mr. Joyce (an empty glass, so no longer "Jim")
he's some sort of wild and woolly Rumanian.
Dear God, is that a country or a medical condition?
But he's the artistic equivalent of uranium.
Depart now, said Joyce, you have my permission.

Sheldon had no quarters or even sixteenths,
but slept under an upturned boat on the shore,
there he dined on cabbage and mixed beans
as his salt cellars were not selling well.
Oh, he could feel it in his deep heart's core
that his fortunes were sinking from day to day,
and the prospect of millions seemed far away;
I am not, he was thinking, cut out for trade,
even though my mind is sharp as a blade.

This War is a no-brainer, I need to find
a wife, or a new and exciting theory of life.
A woman, any woman, would be out of her mind
to marry me, so what should I do next?
I must devote my future to words and text!
I need to find a place to stick my pen in,
to bring out hidden hurts, to incite alarm,
honeyed over with words of faithless charm:
I will call on Vladimir Lenin.

----------------------------------------------------
Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara (a founder of the Dada movement which gave rise to surrealism) were all seeking refuge from the First World War in Zurich in 1917. The playwright Tom Stoppard pounced on the possibility of their having known one another.

Conservatives in the Zurich city government tried to close down the Odeon Cafe where the Dada movement began (the rent went up) and only last week the citizens voted them down 2 to 1. Apart from the Chagall windows in one of the old city churches -- totally ethereal -- Zurich, artistically speaking, doesn't have much else.

341. On the Lido

My troubled heart, dear boy, is not your concern
as we progress along these silent polished galleries,
and if I pause for a moment before a painting
to take a moment's breath, it is the appreciation of art,
and not the sharp and sudden shadow of beyond.
O, God, you very young and eager people, lapping
up what you think is knowledge, happy and brown
in the bright Italian sun; a sun, I might add, that shone
upon people I loved in my youth, now long gone,
but lending a shimmer, a penumbra of light, a parting glow
among the fading embers where old age must go.
Ladies in those days were thoughtful in their dress,
with linens and cottons, an instinct for appearance,
and the gentlemen had carefully-knotted heraldic neckties
and summer suits which draped most beautifully,
so beautiful that it was a pleasure to look upon them.
It was a gentle age, an age of wonder, and I was among them.
Now I look at beefy children of all and many ages
striding white-legged across the Piazzas and Platzes of Europe
in voluminous many-pocketed shorts, their upper portions
adorned with stretched but simple short-sleeved garments
advertising the more obscure American seats of learning.
One has doubts concerning these extraordinary establishments
since one can hardly say they know or understand anything,
yet they make a quite flagrant use of the Roman alphabet
in such barking phrases as "Duke Sucks" and "Yadda Yadda Boom".
One harbours the suspicion that they do not really read.
I retrieve the slim leatherbound volume of Keats
from the innermost pocket of my rather well-fashioned suit
which fits as well now as when I was an undergraduate
and note the spidery scrawl of DeVere Hutchinson on the flyleaf,
one of the more roguish dons of unpublished consequence,
and my thoughts, rarely maudlin, go back to Magdalene.

340. The third (corrupt) stage of nationalism

O salacious ungracious paperfalls,
po-faced political policy statements,
raining down, damply drizzling,
plashing among the half and the quarter innocent,
among citizens ill-prepared, all those who go
shuffling off to work in the morning.

Hi-ho, hi-ho ...
Put a D-notice on that man; surround his house.

Yes, well, it's all just background noise,
predictable, so typical: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,
lullabies to lull us all to lovely sleep.
But there are promises we must keep,
agreements, aspirations, things to be done,
lovers to be lied to, contracts to be won;
and the last thing we bloody well need
is another major war. What for?

I mean, huff-puff, it's all very well
to make this life a living hell
for dusky people in a faraway village;
after all, they are used to rape and pillage
and I doubt that they can really care
about the odd atrocity here and there.
Oops, there goes Granny and Papa and Mama,
there go the cousins and fifteen kids:
one well-placed bomb can do it all.

Well, I can't see anything wrong with it,
because, I mean, you'd expect that, wouldn't you,
if you lived in one of those dreadful places?
It's not as though they lived in Pimlico
where the black-lipped ladies come and go
to the Starbucks on the corner
carrying Penguin editions of Proust
or How to Lose Fifteen Pounds of Ugly Fat
in Fifteen Days. Guaranteed.

What I do not need is your noddy-noddies.
No, I don't want to see photos of the victims' faces:
I gave generously at the office, so why can't you
fuck off, please, just leave me alone?
Chase another dog, dig another bone.
I support the King, the President, the Kaiser,
and that's just the way it is.
OK, it's sad; it's sometimes bad,
but what do you expect?

I love my family, pay my taxes,
damn all braces, bless relaxes;
I go to the seaside and play with my kids,
go fishing on the river, drink with old pals,
slap my wife on her ample bottom,
listen gaily to her shrill and outraged giggles,
then bound upstairs for the blessings of marriage.
So tell me, where did I go wrong?

I'm just so tired. Yes, I know.

But sit back, so, and listen.
Dungeon-dim, it's like dark, still with me?
Dungeon-dim desultory desuetude,
deadly decades of dull decrepitude,
have become a cancer of the soul.
We no longer think, but stagger and roll,
balancing our feet on a heaving deck,
grinning inanely, suggesting control:
but the deep ocean, the ocean coils beneath.
And we, from childhood trained to hate the Other,
at length have learned
to hate each other.

--------------------------------------------------------
* in some countries this is described as "patriotism", which rather neatly relegates nationalism, as such, to foreigners.

339. Georgia Gambles ... and Loses!

What follows is the most concise and (comparatively) objective account I have been able to discover after several days of trawling the Net. It comes from ABC (Australia) and the original article can be found here:

The war in the Caucasus: looking underneath the propaganda blanket

By Alexey D Muraviev

Posted Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:06am AEST
Updated Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:39am AEST


On 12 August, President Dmitry Medvedev declared the end to Russian military operations in Georgia on the basis that they have accomplished set tasks: Georgian forces were pushed back from Southern Ossetia and their fighting capability was seriously curtailed. However, the end of the Russian counter-offensive will not halt the information war that carries on.

In his highly emotional article on the ongoing conflict in Southern Ossetia, Mr Grigol Ubiria was quick to identify Russia as the root cause of the problems in the south-eastern Caucasus and the world in general. The conflict over Southern Ossetia is a complex multi-layered phenomenon that requires a balanced analytical approach. To be able to get a comprehensive picture, apart from the viewpoints of the United States and Georgia, Russia's motives and strategic intentions have to be examined also.

Russia's claims about its traditional role in the area are based on the history of its engagement in regional affairs. The nation's influence over the Caucasus was established in the 18th century as a result of the nation's prolonged struggle with the Ottoman Empire. After yet another war with the Ottomans (1768-74), Russia secured the Crimean Peninsula, the Sea of Azov and further south along the Black Sea coast. In 1783, the Russian Empress Catherine II (the Great) and the ruler of two Georgian provinces (Kartly and Kakhetiya) Irakliy II signed the so-called Georgian Treaty, according to which Russia offered Eastern Georgia a status of a protectorate and guaranteed the safety of the local Orthodox Christian population against the neighbouring Ottoman Empire. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-91, the Russian protectorate was extended to the rest of Georgia.

However, Russia's current hard-line actions in Southern Ossetia are driven not just by the understanding of its historical role in regional politics but primarily by the following considerations.

Immediate response

Russian officials claim that the use of force against Georgia is legitimate and refer to Article 51 (the right of self-defence) of the United Nations charter. These arguments are based on accusations that Georgian military forces attacked Russian peacekeepers (stationed in the area since 1992) as well as Russian citizens living in Southern Ossetia.

Antagonistic relations with the government of Mikhail Saakashvili

Throughout the 1990s the relations between Russia and Georgia remained problematic. Georgian officials (Gamsarkhurdiya and Shevarnadze) continuously accused Russia of intervening in its domestic affairs, while the Russians blamed official Tbilisi in playing the 'Russian neo-imperial' card in an attempt to secure financial and political backing of Western nations. Georgia was accused of harbouring Chechen separatists and Al Qaeda terrorists, particularly in Pankissi Gorge (the deployment of US military forces into Georgia in 2002 was formally motivated by counter-terrorism agenda).

However, after Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in November 2003, bilateral relations seriously deteriorated. By prioritising above all relations with the United States (before the 2005 visit of US President George W Bush to Tbilisi one of the main streets was named after him, an example that says it all) Mr Saakashvili continuously undertook steps that intimidated Moscow, including:

* Active role in forming the pro-US regional security structure GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova), formed in 1997 and aimed at cutting off Russia from south-western Europe, the Caucasus, and Caspian Sea region.
* Persistence in joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and an offer to the United States to deploy elements of Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence (ABM) on its territory, both moves viewed by the Russians as threatening their national security.
* Massive defence modernisation program with the fastest growing military budget in Europe (risen by 30 times over the past seven years reaching a figure of $US1 billion in 2007). US active involvement in forces training and upgrades (the total contribution of the United States towards Georgia's rearmament reached $US40 million).
* Non-diplomatic and often offensive anti-Russian rhetoric as part of the regular lexicon of Georgian politicians (on one occasion Mr Saakashvili said that he wanted to learn judo to beat up then Russian president Vladimir Putin).

Growing geopolitical rivalry with the United States

When Mr Bush visited Georgia in May 2005 he described the country as a regional 'beacon of democracy'. However, the US's overwhelming support for Georgia is driven not so much by the global approach of 'exporting democracies' and by particular concerns about the nation's form of governance but by rather clear geopolitical and military-strategic considerations. Continuing to view Russia as one of its principal rivals, the United States uses Georgia to reduce Russia's influence in the Caucasus and to drive it away from the Black Sea region (effectively dismantling the 18th century gains). A friendly Georgia could also be used to put extra political-military pressure on Russia in times of international crisis. The Russians view this in the context of the transforming strategic environment (expanding NATO, deployment of ABM in Europe and the Pacific, US penetration of the former Soviet space).

Another major consideration is the geopolitics of pipelines. Georgia plays a key role as a transit state in the US-led transnational Ceyhan energy project aimed at offering a transport route for Caspian and Central Asia oil that would bypass Russia. Adding to that, Georgian ports are also used for the transit of energy resources. This represents an economic challenge to the Russians who strive to become the energy superpower, by becoming the principal deliverer of energy resources.

In this context, the conflict over Southern Ossetia is not a war between Russia and Georgia (de jure, it cannot be classified as a war as neither side declared war on its opponent). De facto, it is a proxy conflict between Russia and the United States over the strategically important area.

Where from here

The declared ceasefire does not mean the end of hostilities. Russia has shown an intent to keep its military presence in the area and indicated support for backing South Ossetian and Abkhazian claims for independence (on par with other reasons such as pragmatic desire to have friendly buffer zones and weaken hostile Georgia, the Russians will use the Kosovo precedent to justify such an action).

Another difficulty arises from Russia's refusal to deal with Mr Saakashvili. Effectively, Russian officials are incriminating Georgian authorities in state-sanctioned terrorism. Georgia was accused of ethnic cleansing against Ossetians. Adding to that, on August 11, the head of Russia's Federal Security Service (counter-intelligence) Aleksandr Bortnikov accused Georgian secret services of planning terrorist attacks in Russia. It is likely that the Russians will continue to insist on Mr Saakashvili's resignation.

While large-scale military operations may be coming to an end, the political war over Georgia is likely to escalate, particularly in the context of the upcoming US presidential elections.

It is clear that Russia has won a military campaign and Mr Saakashvili has suffered a humiliating military and political defeat. After all, if you continuously tease and hurt the bear, he will retreat first, roar loud but eventually counter attack. However, so far it is not winning the information war. Over the past four years the Russians did amazingly well in restoring their national might and international reputation and prestige. Now, they have to engage in aggressive damage control over what seems clear to them was a just war.

Dr Alexey D Muraviev is a strategic affairs analyst and an award-winning lecturer in International Relations and National Security at Curtin University of Technology. He is one of Australia's leading experts on Russia's strategic and defence policy.

Here is an article with some interesting background info from the New York Times.

338. Soon, Not Now

There will be strangers, child,
uneasy-eyed, stubble-jawed men,
unwashed and feral wild,
but that don't mean nothing.
When your Daddy's gone
they will become your silent Daddys
and care for you
protect you
but they will never love you
like I do:
they don't know how.

337. Mr. Drew Wears Armani

At night, barefoot, on the stony tracks
the roots and the rocks would cut your feet
and you'd come home bleeding, angry,
and prepare for the next time. It went
on and on forever, there in the hills,
down by Cuil Aodha and Gougane Barra.
Tell me the names of a thousand stars
and which of the leaves in the forest
can heal which illness, whether boiled or powdered,
placed in a poultice, eaten, or stuck up your arse.
Twenty years they said it would take, each year
the chance of getting thrown out, rejected,
and the weary shame of returning home.

Knowledge they knew was dangerous
and it was doled out in careful stages; nothing
was allowed to be written; pens and parchment
were things we never saw. Memorise all we tell you
or tomorrow we send you home. In the beginning
it was nigh impossible, but then it became easier,
and our eyes began to see brighter colours,
our ears could hear the mice in faraway barns
and the trout singing softly in the lake,
and we were not asleep even when sleeping;
our teachers slowly, gradually, became less stern
and we knew then we would not be sent home
for us there could be no other home, not then.

Two thousand years later, give or take,
I step off the airplane at LA International
and wave my fingers at the Immigration flunkey
who immediately stamps my passport, blinking.
Out in the hot hazy sunlight I glide into a taxi
and I listen to the mangled Spanish of the driver
for a few minutes, then wave him into silence.
In Beverly Hills I ascend to the Penthouse Suite
obtained with a flutter of the fingers, I telephone
the production company shooting my next movie,
then descend, nattily casual, to the cavernous lobby.
I wave my fingers for an exquisite, well-cooked meal
and eye the elegant blonde sitting four tables over.

A charming little smile, another finger movement,
and she rises from her chair and instantly joins me;
having enjoyed the amenities in my palatial quarters,
I present her with three homemade 100 dollar bills,
far far better than the originals, and she kisses my toes
and bows herself backwards from the room. Ho hum.
Time to call the President, tell him what he's doing wrong,
and accept the usual excuses and apologies. Such a bore,
but one's gotta do what one's gotta do. I find that so true,
and one really needs to plan for the next thousand years.
Had I known in my youth things would end up like this
I might have had second thoughts, felt slightly remiss,
but one grows so used to this business with the fingers.

There is a lot to be said for an old-fashioned education.