——————————————————— SOME LIGHT READING & A SONG
JOHN LIDDY
———————————————————
Belfast Lapwing
SOME LIGHT READING &
A SONG
JOHN LIDDY
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com www.lapwingpoetry.com Copyright © John Liddy 2012 Cover Image ‘Ballerinas’ 1961 © Jack Donovan 2012 All rights reserved The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Since before 1632 The Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan Has been printing and binding books
All Lapwing Publications are Printed and Hand-bound in Belfast Set in Aldine 721 BT 10/12pt at the Winepress
Publications date
ISBN 978-1-909252-17-2
ii
CONTENTS
RELIEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE LAST MAN AND WOMAN ANIMAL ADVICE . . . . . . . . . TO THE IRISH . . . . . . . . . . . TO THE SPANISH . . . . . . . . . RUIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONNEMARA DETAIL . . . . . . A MOORE’S MELODY . . . . . . OVERHEARD . . . . . . . . . . . . .
............. ............ ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. THE DANCING BUTTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CLASSIFIED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CLASSIFIED (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FREE KISSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REVIEW (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE ODD SOCK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REVELATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SMIRTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOUNDING OFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . UNCLE AT A WEDDING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHO FUAR THE ROCKER? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ARMSTRONG’S FOOTPRINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SAME OLD TUNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EVICTION 21 C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SPLITTING HAIRS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HERAT, AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE LAST MAN AND WOMAN (2) . . . . . . . . . . TWO FRIENDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONTROL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DAVID ATTENBOROUGH’S VOICE . . . . . . . . . ODE TO AN ABANDONED SHOE . . . . . . . . . . . TO A YOUNG POET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEADLIFTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CROUCH, TOUCH, PAUSE, ENGAGE . . . . . . . . AROUND THE BEND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
7 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 11 11 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Some of these poems appeared in Revival Literary Journal.
Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage was published as part of Limerick 12/12/12 A Positive View by AnneMarie Burke (12 oil paintings, 12 art prints and 12 books showing the development of the collection).
iv
SOME LIGHT READING & A SONG
FOR HAYDEN MURPHY
who gave much, asked for nothing
v
Animal incorrectness Hare today, gone tomorrow.
vi
John Liddy
RELIEF
A voice like a massage after suffering a barrage.
THE LAST MAN AND WOMAN
They are not putting out the light, they are making the most of it.
ANIMAL ADVICE
A rabbit in a frying pan is far more dangerous than a rabbit in a burren.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
TO THE IRISH
Remember this: As the tiger roared in your tank you lived post-famine bliss.
TO THE SPANISH
Remember this: Visceral thinking obscures vision, creates a them and us.
RUIN
Vengeful rain and violating wind pounding the all-weather church on the road to Valladolid.
8
John Liddy
CONNEMARA DETAIL
Behind the wall a graveyard, on the wall a sign: No Parking Here. Outside the wall a playground facing the boats at the pier.
A MOORE’S MELODY
How fleeting the smile of yesterday’s cheer. How empty the bow of the last encore.
OVERHEARD
Two friends on a street talking about a holiday: “Whawasdeotellike?” “Derwasapoolanallinit.”
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Some Light Reading & A Song
THE DANCING BUTTON
Held by a thread it dances itself to a stupor until it is rescued or drops to the floor.
CLASSIFIED
Mature man available for young inexperienced woman to practise on.
CLASSIFIED (2)
Young woman on a beach fantasies about the sun. Young man thinks himself into that role.
10
John Liddy
FREE KISSES
They kissed a hundred lips at the free kiss reunion last year. Tantalized by one kiss they begin to notice its taste turning bitter.
REVIEW
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon is Scotland’s answer to Ireland’s Walter Macken.
REVIEW (2)
Ten Sad Songs by Leonard McDermid encapsulate the mystery of the sorrowful word aching with memory. 11
Some Light Reading & A Song
THE ODD SOCK
They go in together, spin about, come out without each other. The lost and found, misfits in an orphanage forever abandoned.
12
John Liddy
REVELATION
For the boy staring at the gorilla in Chester zoo, thoughts of Darwin and God’s hand in creation a vexatious dilemma. Until the gorilla, quick as an eyelash snatches a sparrow in flight and stuffs it into its mouth – the question addressed in a flash.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
SMIRTING
Neighbours are talking again. This trend could lead to intimacy as fear or shyness go up in smoke. Even the familiar is seen afresh, the taken-for-granted rediscovered in the window display of the local pub and shared with one who just might be interested in a 1745 jug from a Limerick spirit merchant where family once worked.
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John Liddy
SOUNDING OFF
After the hullabaloo a simmering calm After the explosion a deafening silence After the insult a festering wound After the argument an intake of breath After a thunder clap a Messiaen symphony after all is done nothing is said.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
UNCLE AT A WEDDING
After observing the bride and groom, he proceeds to make a holy show of himself on the dance floor, loses an argument with his sister; takes refuge in Arthur’s brew, wonders how he got to his room. But he is first up for breakfast, has checked that the birds are still singing, the flowers upstanding in their beds and has more than a fair idea about what withers, what blooms.
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John Liddy
WHO FUAR THE ROCKER?
Nobody can recall the first stone thrown or its perpetrator, but on it goes through time with malicious glee, tit for tat between families in Fairisle bars or Mary’s parks, innocence caught in the cross-fire. Nobody can remember who fuar the rocker, the why or the what for. Stone was flung to continue its flight and will not cease until we gather all the stones together into Billy Keane’s cairn for peace.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
ARMSTRONG’S FOOTPRINT
“Get up, get up, they’re landing on the moon” my mother insisted from the living room. So I shuffled towards the TV and watched the moment when Armstrong touched The surface and left “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” My mother sang His praises and hailed it a miracle of science, giving God a say in man’s spatial presence. As I watched in awe the Eagle landing I may have wondered about war and famine And what great strides that giant leap for mankind on Earth would reap. But somewhere on the bruised moon Armstrong’s footprint remains frozen.
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John Liddy
SAME OLD TUNE
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on. W.B. Yeats
A Russian girl on the accordion plays the one monotonous rift, bellowing her fingers with breath, while an old Egyptian man Sits all day outside the bank waiting with an improvised shake of his outstretched hand; music to his ears in the sign of the ankh. Nearby, a young Malaysian is on call, reassuring his mother that life is hebat!, not a bother, as opportunities go a-begging On the street for the half-dead where the sparrows are better fed.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
EVICTION 21 C.
This was no 1800’s clearing scene in Ireland but a doorway in Spain where a young man from a basement flat stood beside an assortment of boxes, head down, waiting for the removals. No battering ram, landlord or bailiff was present as he fidgeted on the pavement while his mother and grandmother winced at the click of the closing door behind them. This was repossession by the bank – no concession – return the keys without delay, new tenants on the way.
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John Liddy
SPLITTING HAIRS
Certain young women remind me of my mother when she curled worry between finger and thumb. That gesture meant a solution would be found in the way a patient knitter knits her silent story of wool. But those young women seem oblivious to what is happening around them, absorbed by all that a gaze can hold, they travel an endless line of seashore in their inexhaustible search for a split hair.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
HERAT, AGAIN
Two teenagers inside an ice cream factory swap glances and slip notes to each other. They stroll out but are almost lynched by a mob for violating Sharrah Law, shaming the family. The girl’s father wants them killed and would do it himself but there is hope because the police say they are not criminals and some clerics decline to condemn the couple. Ms. Mohammedi pleads we are all human, God created us from one dirt, why can we not marry or love each other? Mr. Mohammed just wants her safe release, declares he is ready to lose his life like the poet Nadia Anjuman, who was beaten to death for attending a literary gathering in Herat.
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John Liddy
THE LAST MAN AND WOMAN (2)
Hard to imagine a world without women, the last of them spotted in Outer Mongolia hidden away with two small male children. Not surprisingly, all routes leading to her whereabouts were well trodden but she managed to disappear. Hard to imagine a world without men. Is it?. The last of them seen peering through a manhole in Lr. Manhatten. Needless to say the City came to a halt, frantic searching produced nothing, everywhere riotous assault. Hard to imagine something so glib but I have and the last word I heard was not RIB.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
TWO FRIENDS
Two long-standing friends have gone to follow the footfall of my cousin James, so I recall them here as best I can for they were both merry gentlemen. The first an Arklow artist with a pen whose covers of Stony and Cyphers shone and expressed his elegance in letters set to show the beauty of an Irish alphabet. The second a painter of people and place from Gorey and all points East and West, who, like The Tailor, knocked a squeeze out of the blue-bag that was his canvas. Such company will be sorely missed but having known them I am blessed. Two kind and gentle souls I can divulge – Liam O’Connor and Paul Funge.
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John Liddy
CONTROL
left left left left left left left left left right right right right right right right right right
right right right right right right right right right left left left left left left left left left NET
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Some Light Reading & A Song
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH’S VOICE
Dwarfed by the vast expanse of Ocean, the Blue Whale cruises at twenty knots, consuming forty million krill in one day, its streamlining close to perfection. Bigger than the biggest dinosaur it weighs over two hundred tons, the tongue as much as an elephant, the heart the size of a car Its tail the width of an aircraft’s wings; you could swim along its vessels, be carried from southern warmth to cooler northern climes But not know where it goes to breed. One of the fastest in the sea, the largest that feeds on the smallest, It serves to dramatically remind Us of the Ocean and its creatures And how little we know. It is a murmuring cry in the deep – Behold! Before it disappears.
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John Liddy
ODE TO AN ABANDONED SHOE
When I looked up from where I stood in the laneway entrance to Myles Breen’s pub I spotted a lone shoe on the slated roof. Some possibilities for it being there came to mind: the after-match revelry taken too far when the lads unlaced a foot, unleashed into the sky the leather wrapper now covered in grime for me to contemplate. Out of reach, I imagined the victim limping home without a care (for he may have thrown it there) because Limerick had won some cup and this would serve as a reminder or maybe it was the result of a scuffle, a bet gone wrong, who can tell? When I came in from my sos beag, I noticed a man at the bar wearing no shoes at all.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
TO A YOUNG POET
“Your book of poems is the flower of this Sunday morning post.” So began the President’s letter to a young poet whose father carried it around with him to show off to his friends. “A letter from the only person in Ireland who gets post on a Sunday.” He would boast. Lost amongst father’s papers for many years, they reacquainted and the poet had it framed to recall those formative, turbulent times when political enemies were obliged to show respect in the muck and rain of Sneem at Cearbhall O’Dalaigh’s funeral. It has also served to sharpen the poet’s nibs for the journey between mind and heart, to scale those fenced fields and to repay the President’s words when he wrote: “It is a great achievement to be published at 21. I feel sure the promise of this book will be fulfilled with others to come.”
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John Liddy
DEADLIFTS
Against all the odds, a three times world champion caught a neighbourhood by its sleeve, lifted its weight off the bar onto his shoulders in a two-hand squat and came eye to eye with the surrounding squalor; built a clubhouse in his garden to keep its idle young off the street, trained them to realise the finer points of powerlifting. Squat, bench press, deadlift replaced the jargon of the bad road in a new club that forged champions, gave its young men hope, a window on a world other than a burnt out South Hill estate, slapped up to accommodate the baby boom of the 60’s, without facilities. Today its youth will regenerate a future strengthened by men like Tommy Dillon.
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Some Light Reading & A Song
CROUCH, TOUCH, PAUSE, ENGAGE
It took Steve Keogh many years to say the words ‘I was not there’, believing he stood with the brave and the bold that day in Thomond Park when Munster were a sight to behold! Dredged from sources few could contradict, he recalled The Maori Love Song by Sammy Benson’s B & R Band and Noel Harrington showing the crowd the All Blacks’ lineout card. He even got the weather right on which so many fell, the try from Jimmy Bowen’s pass by Christy Cantillon, Wardie’s nail in the coffin and last kick of the ball over Gerry McLoughlin’s cousin’s wall. But one night with a group of Limerick lads whose fathers had also spun the yarn, Steve was flummoxed on Dennison’s dead arm. From then on he stopped the pretence although he had meant no harm Because now he knows it is enough to cry To the brave and the faithful nothing is impossible for Munster pride will never say die and always stand up and fight – Forti et Fideli nihil difficile.
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John Liddy
AROUND THE BEND
for Gerry O’Brien
At last the day of my dream arrived to reach Clonmacnoise by water, like Turgeis the Viking in 844 who caused untold slaughter. But that, of course, was not my plan for the offer to make the journey came many years ago from my good friend Captain Gerry. So off we set one Summer’s morn full of joyous trepidation, as we cruised up the Shannon, relishing in every detail – Cows along the river’s banks lapping up rays of sunlight, mallard ducks amongst the reeds readying themselves for flight. Then I was told to keep an eye out for the ruins lay round the bend, but hard as I looked I saw no sign of ruins I prayed to comprehend. Three hours later in Ballinasloe is where we ended up, the cruiser without petrol lay drifting on the Suck. That night in Garrykennedy after pints to beat the band, I closed my eyes and heard a voice ‘tis just around the bend.’ 31
Some Light Reading & A Song
v 32
L A P W I N G PUB L I C A T I O N S
JOHN LIDDY
Born Youghal, Co Cork (1954), grew up in Limerick, took a degree in the University of Wales, works as a teacher and librarian in Madrid. His poetry books include:Boundaries (1974); The Angling Cot (1991); Song of the Empty Cage (1997); Wine and Hope/Vino y Esperanza (1999); Cast-A-Net/Almadraba (2003); The Well: New and Selected Poems (2007); Gleanings from the Margins (2010). His translations include: La Barca de la Arena (2010), a translation by Francisco Rivero in Spanish of The Angling Cot; Ivy Down (2010), a translation by Liddy in English of Tosigo Ardento by José Maria Álvarez; Diamond Bird (2012), a translation by Liddy in English of Diamond Bird by Rocío Álvarez Albizuri. In 2011 Cuentos Cortos en Inglés, a collection of stories for children in English and Spanish, was published. He is the founding editor along with Jim Burke of The Stony Thursday Book, one of Ireland's longest running literary reviews along with Cyphers and organizes The Well/El Manantial, a weekend festival of poetry in Madrid with Matthew Loughney of The James Joyce Pub and The Embassy of Ireland.
The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore - so it has been written indicative of hope. Printed by Kestrel Print Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland
Cover Image ‘Ballerinas’ (1961) Jack Donovan
ISBN 978-1-909252-17-2 £10.00