poems




(Belfast Fortnight)
Untitled Sonnet
What are we looking for all these years
It can't be far from us through seasons change
Light's sensuous quality and our perceptions
Altered irrevocably. Like autumn sunlight
It's colder glance reminds us that there's
More to life than summers of indolent repose
What we have we cannot help but lose
None of it can go on forever

But behind Winter there's always Spring
You can't go on in silence imagining
The pure idea of silence. Look out
Your window. The trees are waving in
Unison because the dead are returning
To us, reborn, in new, perfect forms
Mairtin Crawford (Published by Belfast Fortnight Magazine February 2004
copyright where stated.


Life - oh yes, I can tell you
A few things about life
One should always overdo it
Never lay down to sleep
See the world with 12-hour eyes

Within the next hours
I shall lead you through moods
And soundscapes of all kinds
Days and nights are totally
A different thing than breathe and see

You are perfectly right
No-one should stay alone with their pain
Give me one day only - and when it is finished
NO STONE SHALL BE LEFT UNTURNED


Dreams, desires, red wine
Raspberry spirit
At a very late hour I refrained
Why should I die
Of a broken heart?
One should just not leave
And leave this world behind
With some sort of fundamentalists
Reductionists and stagnationists
Some world-simplifiers
Narrowminded skulls and hearts of stone
Devastating gardens with a Northern wind.

UNDER THE COVERS, THERE LIE WELDED SWORDS



Picture by Jad Fair

special thanks to festival organiser Deirdre Molloy for helping us out with poems and references.
TO A PARTING OF PARALLEL STREAMS

For Mairtín

In a land locked submarine they laid her out
to displace dark waters and sink on you
When Kingfishers ablaze buzzed the towpath
sounding our depths around her grave

One hundred segmented legs in tumult
scampering across a tarmacked desert
You, crouching thrilled by the furrowed tyre
to absorb this midget view of Brobdingnag

Shreds of strawberry in splintered ice
tequila song fire, second bottle of Chablis
We were Byron and Shelley in a storm
overlooking the philistine, drum beaten host

My house was yours, yet your feet never came
fixed on bar room tiles worn to your tread
And there you still jig your sure-footed slide
to the Belfast Maenad awhirl in her spin

Gentle friend, I mourn the brother of my heart
reading his poem under a parasol of leaves
Fragile words in vigorous, passionate hue
that ended too soon, in the full torrent of life

Á Mhairtín mo chara, a dhearthairín,
ní bheidh bua ag an bhás.

Kevin McGimpsey

Kevin McGimpsey
White

The idea of glass upon glass, unseeable
and silence repeated, unbelievable.

An infinite apperance of nothing
so much as guitars, amps, good drumming.

An impossible Egg from Ballymena
a southpaw from Ardoyne.

The imprint of a tiny
dinosaur's foot
on the front of an astronaut's boot.

Between The Lines reader 4/4/04: Kevin McGimpsey
Author: Mairtín Crawford


Into the dark

i.m. Michael Hartnett
It was a Wednesday
the thirteenth of October
a blue winter morning.
I walked the lanes
over the hill of Howth,
had breakfast by the sea,
wrote letters, bits of poems.
All this before the house
came tumbling in:

not by curse or magic
venom or lie
wizard or warlock
storm or blaze
but by pure dark –
Paula rang to say
“Michael was dead.”

For years I’d watched him
sacrifice his old-age to poems.
I know they’ll tell me
he’ll live on in them,
that when I open his books
birds will flutter from the pages,
otters scurry from the riverbank,
prayers open like leaves,
old voices fill the air –
his cigarette smoke will curl
round me like a lonely ghost.

But tonight I feel it is not true,
for I can go nowhere to meet him,
the streets are all heartbreak.
His eyes and his voice are gone;
the voice that nailed
his poems in the air.

Watch for him tonight, O Lord,
you’ll know him by his light.


Between The Lines reader 4/4/04: John O' Farrell
Author: Tony Curtis

When Sometimes All I Can Imagine Are Hands

There is a winter within me,
a place so cold, so covered in snow,
I rarely go there. But sometimes,
when all I can imagine are hands,
when trees in the forest
look like they’re made of wood,
then I know it’s time
to take your photograph
and sling it in a bag with socks and scarves.
My neighbours must think it strange
to see me strapping on my snowshoes,
to hear me roar at the huskies
as I untangle the harness.
But when all you can imagine are hands
it’s best to give a little wave
and move out into the whiteness.

Tony Curtis
On 2/4/04 @ Between The Lines it was dedicated to Mairtín Crawford


Wrong End of the Telescope

Little details always gave you pleasure.
Snails on the cliffs at Whitehead,
crawling up.
Catchy phrases:
Easy peasy lemon squeezy
Okey doke.
Toto. “She’s a Pomeranian, you know.”
Bok choi in the fridge.
That Muldoon poem about trees
you read to me three times
perched on the edge of the bed.

Small things also enraged you.
Perceived slights.
Accidental brushes with indignity.
Dog shit
in the wrong place
before the Ulster-Scots debate.

I learned not to laugh.

If you had tunnel vision
it was a mountain shaft on fire.


Cyber-Flirt

Across the years, you cast your net of words
trawled me in, your applet, your bot.
We chattered like an endless flock of birds
aloft on currents of desire
caught in flight, white hot.

Now I search for messages you left:
to vampires and rock climbers, hugs and kisses …
and I somehow feel a pixel less bereft
knowing you downloaded psychedelic truffles
from secure-connection savvy druidesses.


Leaving Belfast


After reading that Muldoon poem
Wind and Tree
to a festival hall full of people who loved you
carrying your notebooks, old school essays
NASA research
strapped to my body
like a lifejacket
or a bomb
carrying the trust of your mother
wrapped up in my promise
to decipher your handwriting
gather your poems together
I find myself weeping
from one eye
in the airport lounge
on the plane
and on the train.
All the next day
back in Brighton
my left eye overflows
with clear water
tears oozing one by one
like snails down my cheek.
Did you get caught in a draught?
my landlady asks.
Yes, the door
between winter and spring
was open a crack.
A cold, sharp wind
drove me back up the Lisburn Road
to pick up my luggage
and call for the taxi
to take me away
from the people you loved
the place where you lived.

Naomi Foyle
(final poem composed after Between The Lines 2004)

Naomi Foyle at the Between the Lines Festival April 2004

special thanks to Deidre Molloy

A STROLL THROUGH THE BOHEMIAN TALES....

welcome to these pages, dear reader, a page brimful with soundbites -- the words above are quoted from Red And Guilty by Michael Stavaric (Vienna/Brno Vabene 2002), special translation for Bohemian Tales.

Love is a portrait that loves itself at night
Only at daybreak does it breathe
And once again, I cannot make a decision

I have tried to imagine what it means to me
And what lies in between
Whether it is possible to be carried
By many book spines when one loves

Love is like a French tramway
When it derails, the devil rubs its hands
My anti-poet
He speaks that one language only
And he doesn't mean "rest yourself"

He disguises himself as a street cleaner
BRUSHES THE LEFTOVERS ASIDE WITHOUT CARE
MS
I know that some of youse out there in cyberspace do not understand German, but give it a go anyway reading the lines because a poem is not only a visual but an acoustic image. At least this is what RM Rilke said.

"Wenn es bestimmt ist, dass Ufer sich erheben,
So lass die Menschheit ihrer Existenz neu einen Gipfel waehlen
Es ist der Schnittpunkt der Zeit und blitzende Sterne
Verschoenen gerade den unblokierten Himmel,
Es sind fuenftausend Jahre alte Pictogramme,
Es sind die Gestalt gewordenen Blicke kuenftiger Generationen."
Bei Dao (aka Zhao Zhenkai) born in Beijing in 1949
Translated by Wolfgang Kubin, in "Nachrichten von der Hauptstadt der Sonne - moderne Chinesische Lyrik 1919-1984


From A journey to China by Gabriella Gotthalmsted
Zweierlei Voegel
Strichvoegel Reflexion
Zugvoegel Poesie
Singt jeder andern Ton
Und andre Melodie
Nicolaus Lenau (Austro-Hungarian Poet, Published by Cotta, a book that I borrowed from my neighbour Walter Seggi, who is a historian specialised in ancient history (Dalriada and co) and owner of 7000 books and only 25 years old)

Picture by Galatee Films (Jacques Perrin), 92, Rue Jouffroy d'Abbas, F-75017 Paris, e-mail: galatee@club-internet.fr

A letter:
The nameless ones who all have a name and a face.

The working population and authority seems to care little for the unemployed. This poem reflects their anguish, their innocence, and their pain:

We are the nameless ones
Bargain basements, Tebbit's bikers,
Painters and hold in the shoe hikers.
We are down and out,
Scroungers and layabouts,
-Often talked about.
Lines on social security graphs,
Percentages, numbers and points,
Means-test applicants,
Redundancies -McGregorized boyes.
We are statistics, the unemployed,
Beggars, overmanned misfits,
Rejects and lazy buggers,
Suicides, death grants,
Yops, volunteers for social schemes,
Psychological oddities,
Benefit books, production outcast,
Political pregnancies,
Supplements, question marks,
Orphaned ejaculations
Fourth World candidates
And millions of pound notes paid weekly.
But once, a century ago it now seems,
We were known as people.

 

Mogg Williams - Poems available: 14, Suffolk Place, Ogmore Vale nr. Bridgend, Mid Glam. CF32 7DS United Kingdom

Mogg Williams reading at the Constitutional Club, Ogmore Vale
Picture by Grahamme P. Matthews
"When people from many different background care enough to support the lonely and isolated craft of poetry, then art itself is safe from the uncaring attitudes it is often subjected to,"
inspired and dedicated to miss-shapes with dreams, wherever you are, whoever you are xxx

My Heart is sad and it is blue For it is far from You Only with Yours, is my Heart Mine also, for it is Yours in part. by David James

Red White Blue (Cerveny bily modry)

Red are the cherry red roses
White is the winter snow
Blue is the summer sky
To you beloved
The colour of the banner
The clamours of nostalgic desires
All caught on monochrome

It rains in my heart
It cries on the town
All we dream is in black and white
My hopes all whispered for
Just laughters broken like crystal clear
It doesn't matter, beloved
We save the hope for tomorrow

We lived in the blue
We told so many white lies
The day after, beloved, no red dawn
It rained in our heart
It cried on our town
All developed on monochrome

See endless shades of grey
White faced children dancing
Laughters like crystal clear
All I dream is in black and white
So many white lies
It doesn't matter, beloved
We save the hope for tomorrow

The colours of the banner
The clamours of nostalgic desires
Do not sing of ideas, beloved
Cherry roses are red
White is the snow
Blue is the summer sky
And that's the only truth
In monochrome

D.A. Hoffman

Hope is a dimension of the spirit. It is not outside us but within us. When you lose it, you must seek it within yourself and in people around you. Not in objects or even in events."

Vaclav Havel - Letters to Olga

 

Effekte der Kunst(waere eine moegliche Ueberschrift)

Beruhigende Zufriedenheit in mir
Mensch, sie haelt mich fern von dir
keine Sorge, mir geht es gut,
auch ohne dich, bekomme eine Wut.

Verstanden wie das Wasser vom Meer,
fuehl ich mich, weil ich die Kunst so verehr.

Wer schon ûÁergeht voller Neid,
ist Materialist, fur ihn vergeht die Zeit,
diese Person kann Kunst nie geniessn,
nie wie Eis in Hitze zerfliessn.


Ingrid Bergmaennlein @ Cafe Yesterday
email: ingrid_bergmaennlein_@hotmail.com

Ayres Rock by Vanessa R. Siegl

A poem by Michael Stavaric, from the collection
tagwerk ungelenk (red and guilty) (2002)

Eigentlich sitze ich gegenüber unter deinem Fenster.
Du möchtest fliegen lernen und dir selbst genügen.
Ich werde der Nachwelt darüber Bericht erstatten.
Wie du den Gedanken gefasst hast
während einer morgendlichen Matinee.
Als ich noch bei dir sass und Tee trank.
Als ich noch sprach und meine Worte dich erreichten
und du meintest: ich könne dich inspirieren.

ICH STIMME EINEN REFRAIN AUS "LA BOHEME" AN.

Over the Bridges you can hear Callas sing
the award winning poem Three (runner-up to the Dun Laghoire Feile Filachta European Poetry festival 2002 is going to be featured here soon. Congratulations!

Du skal ogsaa have en lille hilsen fra gode gamle Danmark.
Un mail internacional - saludas y muchos besos
cheers from joergen
the time to be happy is now
the place to be happy is here
the way to be happy is
to make others so.
I looked at your web www.oocities.org/radioevropa - patchwork of pictures - its really fascinating - but the text is sometime difficult to read - because of the colours. There are beautiful song and poetry. Support and encouragement mean a lot. The spirit of independance, beyond isms and recommandations - non political and non sectarian. Who likes photography, takes advice from songs, writing pulp fiction, dreamy and sensible. Boat in Portavogie, Northern Ireland, my own 1999. Such a ship was my dream - but not in Belfast - in Amsterdam.
Sleeping makes me thirsty - punishing kiss, Ich bin so wild nach deinem erdbeermund, I shall be released - Sigur Ros - Icelandic soundcapes is cute too. Sometimes I'm looking bakc to free Scandinavia - here its coming 5o years back in history - C'est comme voulez-vous or better c'est comme tu veux, ma J'arrive l?ou je suis etranger. Meine Heimat ist da, wo ich mich gut fûÇle. I love your Zebra. Simon - the beautiful singer - you have a super taste.
make a numbered list of happiness in your life pile up stones corresponding to those numbers
and the my own from San Francisco
The place to be happy is here
The time to be happy is now
The way to be happy is
to make other so.

and a french one - which I like very much
offrir l'amiti??qui veut l'amour - c'est donner du pain sec a qui meurt de soif.

L'esperance fait la vie.

see you soon Joergen one of my favorite poems from old days in San Francisco


Thank you Joergen for sendind this to zebra54
As Monika Ptak would say a zebra is a cross between a white horse and a crow. Or a seagull and a black horse. Maybe both. Must ask a zoologist.
The French one says - to offer friendship to those longing for love is like giving dry bread to someone dying of thirst. Hope makes life. -
Well dear poetic friend Joergen, as Franz Werfel would say the spring of clear water will quench your thirst and the bread of friendship is staple diet and never dries out as it is renewed with each thought. Only prisons give you dry bread of bitterness, so as the poem says "make a numbered list of happiness in your life and pile stones corresponding to those numbers." River deep and mountain high.

Poetic landmarks He dreams in red and green, from signal box to signal box lines speak to lines. In-between the up and down trains he remembers the touch of her touch the such and the nonesuch. A station away an engine sits fondling cold metal a special kind of attachment, purring like a big cat after eating the miles. In bedrooms every evening Lovers shedding skin and rolling stock, animated locomotives that slip off the track give birth to tender tenders. Horizontal rails run parallel Learning curves of spheres and hemispheres, carriages that pass in the night all those brief encounters on the plattforms of infinity. He changes stations seeking love like light, like the diesels hungry for diesel. Hearing the song of steel against steel he recalls the touch of train on train the gentle rain on rain, let sleeping sleepers, sleep. > c) Iain Campbell Webb - Newtownabbey 1999 Performed at the Belfast Poetry Festival Crescent Arts Centre 1999 Anthology of Belfast Poetry

Matzleinsdorfer Frachtenbahnhof Vienna - D.A. Hoffman Nov.2000
D.A. Hoffman would like to remember this way a stationmaster called Franz Reinelt who worked in this place. A plaque at the Philadelphia Bruecke (= Bridge of Brotherly Love! ) remembers him.

Note to ye who passes by: you cannot read the newspaper article properly because the poem "two lies is about those war graves which are lost (of meaning)" - and some time we shall wonder why all these wars of the past were thought for. Hemingway said: "In war you die like a dog for no reason at all" - and Svejk would reply "I sell dogs"

Written by David James (Belfast Autumn 1998) >"Love is enough" - Inscription on the gravestone of the parents of Alexander Irvine. "Dulce et decorum est, Pro Patris mori" - Inscription on the gravestone of a soldier killed in battle. >Two Lies ">Love is enough! This lie is grained in stone Above a grave and like the grave is lost Of meaning, like that imagined by those Who gather round cold clay and withered bone And think sweet and godly thoughts of their own Dear ones and fool themselves that God has caused That lifeless pit to be a place for joys Of lost loves and loves that might have been. ">And as I read these words I thought as well Of that other lie, that would make excuse Above the last remains of those who fell "Pro Patria!" but not with God or sweetness, But with bitterness of green mustard Gas - and the knowledge that they were for naught. > today is rememberance day in the UK, which remembers the end of WW1 and the feast of St Martin - the British Legion's symbol is the poppy. In the past years, there was a debate if one should wear a poppy in Northern Ireland (because, obviously some might misinterpret it as a symbol), but I think we should do because many people from Northern Ireland died in the Battle of the Somme, leaving poet John Campbell with a poem saying: "My daddy died for freedom, I wished he had lived for me" . In days when all sorts of nationalisms and fundamentalisms flare up, and others feel nostalgia about the past, it is important to state from time to time that our desire might be a free and peaceful world, and that maybe we would rather like to concentrate on love, flowers, friendship, birds, travels, beautiful things rather than exercise our expertise in social survival and wonder about existential questions even without speaking French fluently. Nuff said. Let others talk aesthetics, or teach poetry. If youse are old enough to tie your shoelaces, you don't need a babysitter.

Thank you to all contributors to Bohemian Tales:
xxx especially:
David James
Vanessa Siegl
Michael Stavaric
Ingrid Bergmaennlein
Gabriella Gotthalmsted
Iain Webb
Mark Bufano
Jad Fair
Walter Seggi
Joergen Ferre
Scott Zelasny
Sergio Campanale's Red Hat
plus everyone who provided the music, people featuring on this site and other friends. xxx

daniel johnston
maureen tucker
eddi reader
the proclaimers
suzanne vega
>Cara Dillon
Leonard Cohen

nick lowe
shawn colvin
penguin cafe
lassiter
irish-steirisch
suede
pulp
mMoloko
vabene
tycho brahe
blue Harvest
jj72
cafe concerto
McAlmont&Butler
Souther Still
b72
limelight belfast
>loosecontrol.com
Atomsinajamjar

---

"Too late to start a new career. People tend to put you in a pigeon hole.
- You can alway fly out of it," she(a lady reporter from Radio Times), laughed "It's never too late."

When she'd gone her words stayed with me. I think she was right. It's never too late.
Just because you've made your bed, you don't have to lie in it - you can get out and remake it.
A lot of maxims are lies, or at any rate misleading:
Watched kettles do boil,
And rolling stones can gather moss.
The man who cannot change his mind is in danger of losing it altogether.
There is not only one second chance, there are thousands of second chances, Just as long as we wonder at the sunset, the numberless stars in the heavens and the glory of a new day."
Kenneth Williams - "Just Williams - An autobiography" 1985
website


Nothing more left to say really, except that for a goodnight Irish tales you can call the seanachi John Kelly. So this is me, Dominique, signing off for today - and remember whatever makes you happy on a...
cheers, dear internet friend and a visit from you is always welcome!

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