Showing posts with label jeuvenilia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jeuvenilia. Show all posts

Saturday, 13 October 2007

Cow

This was written about a friend in college who went from being pleasantly spikey in first year to bitter and hard in third. By the time I signed up for my postgrad, she was a loose canon creating havoc with people's emotions. Too young at the time to fully understand her behaviour or the insecurities that fuelled it, I realized reading this that I had nevertheless understood somewhat. I often wonder what became of her, I suspect she subsided from dangerous to petty as time wore on though I hope she got some happiness out of life. The title wasn't an insult by the way!


Cow

She's tired of reminders that life
could be worse
She's sick
of well intentioned pushes
of being propelled, unwilling
t'ward the grassy verges


Her dumbness
mutes her cries of pain
(because I cannot hear I do not care)
Screaming inside her head, she stubbornly
wanders
down the gravel raods
she shudders at the lengths ahead
I hear
they die sometimes of starvation

I wonder how far she got
nursing angry standards
bitter ideals
I wonder did she ever find her past.

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Thursday, 11 October 2007

The Trouble with Clouds

I acutally remember writing this one. In the "new" library at UCD, 1987, studying for exams. I even know what I was thinking about when I wrote it! Of all the ones I found this is one I quite like...feedback welcome though!


The Trouble with Clouds

If flat clouds, like airships, hover broad
in the air,
should fall
and touch the earth,
which would melt?

Would I care?
do you?

It seems to me more pertinent han the budget
more necessary near than May and
all it brings
to know which clouds the angels sit on.
Upon.
If I look away from the trees, will they stop
growing and will their leaves wither?
are they fodder for my brain or am I
manure for their souls?
Both. (I think)

Ah Lear! Come in out of the rain.
If every word is wrung from a poet's head
does that make them true?
Accuracy is next to godliness. I thought
you knew.


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne 1987

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Saturday, 1 September 2007

Moving on...

Currently in the throes of moving house and therefore clearing out a small mountain of papers; I have found so many different old papers and have scribbled poems and writings and the start of about five different stories.
I am going to gather them together and print them up here, not because they are any good, but becasue they are different. I was amazed at the different voice that came through in these poems, a much younger voice, in some ways more imaginative but in many ways more limited and pretentious. There were elements I really liked and elements I absolutely hated and there were some truely cringeworthy moments as well!

So I'll start posting them up from next week; as ever any and all feedback and criticism is invited. And a virtual pint for anyone who can guess what age I was when writing any given piece :)

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