Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Pomegranate Annual Christmas Raffle "Pomegranate"

This is a poem I wrote last year, inspired by Pomegranate the charity http://www.pomegranate.ie/ 

Pomegranate helps couples who otherwise wouldn't have had access to infertility treatment, something that is completely unsubsidised in this country. Their annual Christmas hamper raffle is an amazing event, several fabulous hampers up for grabs including a top prize hamper complete with unique handmade quilt.
Please check them out at either the website above or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/PomegranateIE
Tickets cost €5




Pomegranate

When they talk of it
It is assumed, only the fecund know
Where the heart lies
When it comes to babies,
When it comes to birth,
When it comes to dreams
Of sticky hands and kisses.
Oh no, no, we the Barren,
We too understand these joys.
We yearn for them in ways
Only we can understand
We are steeped in the mysteries of pain.
Oh but your words can sting us
Anything stirring? No news for us?
Sure would you not relax?
My sister’s neighbour’s cousin’s friend
Got pregnant using the scapula of some saint
 you probably should have tried when you were younger –
I’d never go to those lengths

Ah we know the heart of it all right
We hold their little hands and kiss their brows
A thousand times in our dreams
And the sweet drug of hope
Lulls us into the arms of sleep
Dark night, after night.




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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Leaf in Autumn

Leaf in Autumn

The gutters turned to streams,
torrents raging through the streets
as grey rain beat down on us
as the wind whipped us
as the sky turned dark.
As I clutched my mother's hand
I saw a leaf charge the rapids,
white water of the drains,
to spend one moment suspended
in the eye of the storm.
And I followed it as it journeyed
through the streets
out of sight but never out of mind.
I follow it still, when the rain howls
and the wind catches my fancy
blowing it where it will
Somewhere out there, it wanders still.

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Thursday, August 8, 2013

The Games are Over


As Russia prepares to host the Olympic Games, many observers are aware of the hideous treatment of the LGBT community there - including recent laws outlawing homosexuality, talking about or discussing homosexuality, imprisonment of LGBT people, outlawing any LGBT activism - laws reminiscent of Hitler's attacks on the Jewish Community on the eve of the notorious Berlin Olympics. The Olympic committee and the various countries participating in the Olympics seem content to ignore these blatant human rights violations even as most Western countries move forward into an era of equality.


The Games are Over


I sat on Mount Olympus
under a weary sun
and waited til He came
His glory undiminished, the Beautiful One
I greeted him and we talked
of old times and days
of all the strange and wondrous things
since we last parted ways.

And then He asked me sadly
Is it true? Will they
sully the games anew, and hold them ransom
for some coins -
is this the truth?
The games I gloried in, in my youth,
the honour, the pride, like prayers and incense
pain and defeat, victory and joy, offered on my Altar?
Are these things naught?


I told him, yes.
For convenience, cash and an easy life
they'll hold the games where they like.
they will ignore the cries of the oppressed
they'll see them beaten in the streets
and close their eyes, it's for the best -
they'll stride out under a thousand flags
but none will be Rainbows.

I told Him this
and He, manly, wept
He held my hand and talked
of His past loves, of golden limbs
and kisses sweet
They have outlawed me, He cried
I am the one they beat.
I am the one imprisoned
I am the one despised -
Anger hardened His lovely face -
The games they hold offend this sacred place
I curse them and their modern play
Olympus turns its back today.




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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Posthumous

Inspired by a prompt from my friend and fellow poet Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose.




Posthumous

I am increasingly hopeful
... that when I die
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
my relatives will mourn my passing
with deep black and willows,
and at every gathering from now til the
last one standing
will remark, "If only She had lasted just a little longer.
If only we had had her, just one more day."
For on my deathbed I intend to say
- as my last words, with my last gasping wheeze -
"The box where I keep my money is buried...."
and the death rattle will leave them baffled
and yearning
and missing me, wishing me, alive again.
Just long enough to finish....

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Farewell Maggie (better late than never)

This poem needs no explanation except to say, those who like me remember the devastation wreaked by That Woman on both sides of the Irish sea are glad to see this day.


Farewell Maggie, my old foe.
This day has been long in dawning -
too slow.
I wish you had gone long ago
when we were still young, with ideals still intact
before you broke a generation on your rack
of consumerism and greed.
You were driven by a need I cannot guess
some class hatred / self hatred matrix in your soul
but you squandered the price of many lives
to reach your goal, and threw aside
the hopes and dreams and pride
of both your nation, and mine.
I wish you'd left my country well alone
and done at least as much for your own.

Farewell Maggie. Never has it rung so true;
better late than never, was coined for you.

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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

what shall you teach your son?


In the light of recent events, it's time to stop telling our daughters to be careful and start considering what we should be teaching our sons. As the mother of a son I know the kind of man I want him to be. It's my failure if, as a woman, I raise a boy who does not respect women.




               
How do we fix this shit?
Let us start with what we teach our sons                                  
Yes you, my innocent little man;
If you ever lay your head next to mine
And whisper that you have hurt, degraded or demeaned
Some woman
Any woman
Any girl
The old one. The ugly one
 The pretty flirt. The one whose skirt
Is too short or blouse too low.
The silly one. The shy one. The odd one.
The one who was mean. The one who said no.
The one who passed out.
The one your mate said was loose.
Any one of them
You will feel the power of your mother.
  You will quickly learn that I am woman, too.
But I love you, my son.
So I will teach you first  
No means no.
Drunk means no.
Unconscious means no.
Uncomfortable means no.
But before that I will teach you
She is entitled to wear, speak, like, dislike, walk, drink, think, live
How she pleases.
And before that I will teach you
There are just people.
Not a war between sexes.
Just people.
You are people.
She is people too.
And when some people try to make you forget that, I will teach you
To say
NO.

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Saturday, March 2, 2013

It's her world....but I think I'm living in it too!

One of my favourite tactics when procrastinating about my own writing, is to read other people's writing; sometimes in my official and therefore virtuous role as Editor with the PPP Publishing Collective but all too often in my role as lazy and unmotivated writer with a two year old time-sucking machine. So imagine my joy when I read one of my favourite blogs It's Her World: We Just Live In It and found the newest entry was about ....not writing!

Any blog writer who confesses "Hello Friends, remember me? I'm the lady who USED to write this blog. Now I'm the lady who wishes she had time to write this blog." is all right with me. I sometimes - on a bad month, when my total contribution to the world of literature is a Kafkaesque attempt at a shopping list - refer to myself as "the woman who USED to write poetry." 
The writer of this blog is a mother with two toddlers and therefore has twice my excuse for being unproductive but I add in elderly parents, a business and a really lazy streak and I reckon we are about even. It's a great read, I won't ruin it by dissecting it here, but go enjoy it. One of the reasons this is top of my blog list is the self deprecating style, coupled with genuinely amusing observations and a core of truth. You all know my hatred of clever but empty writing- well, here is some clever but real writing. Top past posts for me were A Letter to my Spirited Child and Facebook Bullying: The New Normal?

Anyway, the title of this particular post "Endless Inspriration, Zero Energy" really hit a chord with me. Endlless Inspiration indeed - I have drawers, and computer files,  full of beginnings. Novels, poems, Short Stories. Some reside in darkness because frankly they are too horrible to see the light of day. But other pieces languish in obscurity because as excited as I was by the flash of inspiration that ignited a frenzy of words across a page.....I was equally incapable of sticking at the damn thing. They reproach me, they berate me, they accuse me...and yet I still ignore them.

Some day I will find myself with that elusive and extraordinary gift - free time. In the meantime I will read blog's like  http://ceeceescrazyworld.blogspot.ie **and enjoy someone else's witty reminder that I am not alone. I leave you with a promise to create more poetry this year, and in the words of the blog "I miss having something burning inside me that I just gotta get down on paper right then and there" 
Also, I too miss my breasts. 



. ** Ceeceescrazyworld blog is written by MamaZinga All copyrights reserved: extracts reproduced here courtesy of author for review purposes only.

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Songs Of My Heart Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose !

One of my great pleasures is to help publish new and exciting poetry and to act as an editor and publisher to emerging poetic voices. I have the immense delight to announce that my latest project, the long awaited collection of poetry from American poet Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose is now ready and available. It's a great collection, with diverse themes but a unifying style, confident and passionate, but wise and compassionate. And overall, hopeful and optimistic.

One of my personal favourites comes from the first section of the book, the love poems and as it's a wednesday I am sharing it here, with kind permission of Maureen herself. If you would like to read more of Maureen's wonderful poetry, please go to:

Songs of My Heart, Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose, ISBN 978-0-9562403-2-3  PPP Publishing Dublin, Ireland




Love on a Wednesday
Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose, Songs of My Heart

It never gets old...
I walk down the halls of this house
and I feel your love for me beating in the walls
Like the blood through my veins.
I never get tired
Of feeling the energy of the love we share
surrounding me like the wall paper.

I walk into my office
And the first thing I see is you smiling at me,
more beautiful even than the view from the windows...
(Which is saying something!)
And I feel the reality
Of every dream I ever dared to dream in secret,
Knowing they were all fairy tales
And never expecting fulfillment.

It's just Wednesday
No special anniversary,
No day made for lovers...
Except that every day is that, now,
And I am among the privileged,
The ones who have someone to cherish,
Something to sing about...

And so I sit here,
And I know every word I say is inadequate
But in the face of beauty,
And love,
And the fulfillment of every waking dream,
How can I be silent
Even on a Wednesday?



Lovely words for a Wednesday ! I'll share some more shorter excerpts from poems over the coming weeks. 

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