———————————————
Occupational Hazard
AIDAN HAYES ———————————————
Belfast Lapwing
Occupational Hazard
AIDAN HAYES
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com http://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry/ Copyright Š Aidan Hayes 2013 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
Lapwing Publications are printed at Kestrel Print 028 90 319211 E:kestrelprint@btconnect.com Hand-bound in Belfast at the Winepress Set in Aldine 721 BT
ISBN 978-1-909252-22-6
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Some of these poems have appeared in The SHoP and Cyphers Special Thanks to Maurice Harman who won’t know what for.
iii
CONTENTS ...................................... ....................... CONFINEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LOOK AWAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AFTER HUGH MAC DIARMID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOT EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ASK THE ANTI-SMOKER IF SHE/HE DRIVES A CAR . . . . . . . . . . . LIVING THE DREAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DIALECTIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE X FACTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE HONOUR CONFERRED BY A CONFIDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . I KNOW, I KNOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RUE BERNARD JUGAULT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ONCE ONLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LOSING THE INSPIRITING LEAVEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FOR ONE WHOSE HAPPINESS CONCERNS ME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SUMMER WISHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SO, WHAT’S THE SECRET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SELF AND SELVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADRIFT ON TREACHEROUS WATERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE WARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YOU MIGHT HAVE PRAYED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THIS LAND IS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INNOCENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MACARONIC
I NAME THEIR SEVERAL NAMES
iv
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
FOR J.K.
........................................ ................... SOMETIMES THERE’S JUST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SONGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . POINTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THIS IS THE TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FIRST EVENING OF THE LONG SUMMER HOLIDAY . . . . . . . . . . IN NAOMH FIONAN’S GRAVEYARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . COMING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GIVING A TALK AT MIDNIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OF EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SHADES OF GREY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE FIRST CASUALTY OF POWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . COUPLE – COLOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONSIDERING THE POSSIBILITY OF PENNING A POEM OF SELF-PITY WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE S.F.R. FILE: FURTHER EXTRACTS
v
32 33 34 35 35 36 37 37 38 39 40 42 43 44 45 46 48
Forgive me for all these words but they are lamps placed in the hollows of winter Jacques Bertin
vi
Aidan Hayes
MACARONIC
Some verses for the Christmas A d’iarr sí uaim Rosemary A commission a request Chun chur isteach sa nuachtlitir The thing we’re always hearing A deireann ár léitheoirí dúinn That when we give them poems to read Go néiríonn gaoth bheag tobannach And it rushes through the kitchen Sórt gaoithe theacht an earraigh That pushes dust and the musty smell Amach tríd an bhfuinneog oscailte And gives us cleaner air to breathe So ar aghaidh leat a fhir an phinn Weave us a fine scarf of verses Is ar lá an dreoilín is ag Nollaig na mBan We’ll taste clean air and breathe long
7
Occupational Hazard
I NAME THEIR SEVERAL NAMES
Errarooey and Derryreel Moyra with Murroe Gleann and Creag and Trá Swan’s Nest with Screag an Iolair Fawnmore and Parkmore and Faymore Ballymore with Ballyboes Ballybofey is Bealach Bó Féich and Legnahoory stands alone Ballinass with Massinass Lurgy with Leanann and Glashagh Lough Keel and Lough Salt Cnoc a’ Mharmair Cnoc Fola Cnoc Dubh Hill of Marble Hill of Blood Black Hill Carrowcannon LeitirCeanainn Carrowkeel Owencarrow with Bun na hAbhann and Legnahoory stands alone Doon Lake and Dunlewy and Downings Buttermilk Port and the Port of Salt Ráith goes with Raymunterdowney Keadew is from Céide a flat-topped hill (In Breton ki du is black dog) Bedlam’s from Bealtine Croithlí’s a quagmire but Legnahoory stands alone
8
Aidan Hayes
CONFINEMENT
An eye for an eye, you have heard it said. For us it was an advance: retribution admitted, but restrained. Till then, if your neighbour did you hurt you could – with justification – destroy him, snuff out his life. And this was long before the Nazarene. You – you stockade them, and tightly guard the gate. You permit the families to be there. You cannot be astonished that confined men grab for weapons, that they strike you however they can. Are you astonished?
9
Occupational Hazard
LOOK AWAY
A man sits on the footpath – O’Connell Bridge. He could be sixty, – seventy? Face of polished wood. From the subcontinent of India? To passers-by he doesn’t offer voice or eyes. When someone puts a coin in his bowl he gives his gaze, says some word. Then he takes his right hand, places it flat on his breast, pauses– and pushes it out – palm upward– toward the sky. As if to say: You have a heart that finds an echo in my heart: this chord rises to the Eternal. Another man – on Dame Street, by the bank… He uses hat and high collar to hide his face. He tries not to be here. Is he feeling grateful for the mere not-being-dead? And is he living still? Some thirty feet away a poet stands near an open case of books, his calm eyes on the passing world. Evenly he says: Poverty ennobles no one. Who told you that it did?
10
Aidan Hayes
AFTER HUGH MAC DIARMID (1892 -1978)
I want poems like guitars that kill fascists Poems persistent as the sea powerful as Quasimodo Poems like wild poppies in Donegal ground pungent as a sudden greenfinch Poems that censor nothing human that sing like Paul Robeson They singe the page Poems like mackerel that straighten fish hooks They catch the curt sound of carwheels through puddles Poems dynamic with Yeatsian rage These poems give the news due attention Poems that show lobelias’ exact blue Unafraid of farting of yelling of rude red health Poems that take to their breasts the word untouchable They scale the walls round the cabbage patch of the heart Poems with opened mouth and ears and eyes and pores Poem sharp-beaked with questions spiked with exclamations invisibly inked Poems that challenge a minority pursuit These are not nourished by wine and politeness They are poems both crafted and crafty Poems that take you by the lapels and shake Poor poems that speak the word poor the word rich Poems that serve neither master nor mistress These poems worship the god of Life Unfazed by Power they embrace human being Poems not collared and tied Like crowds of starlings they make the air shimmer Poems with strong arms outstretched Poems with fists and with hands Poems that fight with the Self
11
Occupational Hazard
NOT EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. (KM)
Like a football rattle that sound magpie too large for gardens The metal eye of the jackdaw Braggart nihilist that is the strolling rook Depressive dipping flight of finches The nervy tipping of a grounded wagtail
Tits in full kit aviators from the egg A robin offering accompaniment Two swans applaud the water Massing and blending starlings create momentary shapes They alter the surrounding air
NOVEMBER
A leaf scrapes the yard a window bangs uncertainly I’ll build a fire before she comes 12
Aidan Hayes
GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING How far the people forgive the government for the way it has treated them remains to be seen. – Roy Foster, in I.T., 19/12/2009
Be aware that hollow words make ersatz meals– that some human hungers are irresistible: even Ceausescu, in the end, was heckled… An odour begins to invade our air. Our leader’s dreamtime fills with noise: streets and crowds and steady chanting. Rehearsing a script from a steely mind he looks once behind his shoulder. His knuckles on the podium whiten.
13
Occupational Hazard
ASK THE ANTI-SMOKER IF SHE/HE DRIVES A CAR after Félix Leclerc
Stand away from the nice one whose plea is for kindness to the disgraced government man. Question the minister for the people’s health who fervently lauds the unselfishness of nurses. Take care of the bland churchman insisting that we’re all of us human. Suspect the one – the people’s power in his fist – vaunting his work-hours, his lack of family life.. Distrust the ones who claim they have no agenda, no axe to grind. Challenge those who voice prescriptions for your own good. Those who passionately condemn – what are they concealing? Beware the ones appalled by a word: say rich, say power, say social class. (See how they’re mesmerized by surfaces: watch them recoil from looking beneath.) Pity those who won’t complain– can hope survive incarceration? Preach anger to the angerless. They have given up on the living life. And mirror, mirror on the wall… That one may repay close questioning.
14
Aidan Hayes
LIVING THE DREAM
Take a people well versed in disaster – natural, unnatural. (No need to point out the world’s against them.) Join hands with an authoritarian church. (These ones believe obscurely they must have erred.) Introduce into the mix twin political parties. (Tell them now they have a choice.) Pray, pay, obey. (The shared slogan will without argument shape itself.) Call this confection Machiavellian Dream – or Spain Without Need of Franco. Later, comfy with power, there will be leisure to find new words. (In changing times adjust the lexicon.)
15
Occupational Hazard
DIALECTIC for MMcC … and better than we ever thought possible Éamonn Bredin
The left hand stained with crimes – The left for the shamed part? – but full of gifts the right… The man who gave me these words tonight had his lefthandedness corrected: he says the left hand’s stained with crimes. My mother’s shift was to left, from right. Filled with the gift of willpower she set herself to learn: a blood clot set her teaching the other hand to write. She determined still to make time for postcards, letters, gifts– the left hand never blameable for the sulking crime. She pushed her power to the other side: the one hand purple, closing – the giftgiver – the right. If the phrasemaker’s change was oppressive, vile, my mother’s lifesaver was her will to fight. He says the left hand’s stained with crimes: he stands there filled with gifts, his left hand and his right.
16
Aidan Hayes
THE X FACTOR Alexis Soyet
Could it be the pearls of barley The half-ounce of sugar crystals The potato in season The quarter pound of shinned beef Immersed in two gallons of water What makes soup famine soup Is it the fistful of flour The poor pair of onions It’s hardly the grease-spot of dripping The pinch of salt Is it the recipe’s maker Is it that he’s a Frenchman Does it depend on where he’s from A knowledge of what French peasants eat Is that what makes soup famine soup Which qualification most matters His in-depth study of indigenous diet A seductive way with Reform Club palates Miraculous ways with cheap ingredients Is it the water brackish plentiful Is it the vast iron pot Is it the smoky gorse fire That lifts this soup above the ordinary And lends it the true ethnic quality of fine famine soup
17
Occupational Hazard
THE HONOUR CONFERRED BY A CONFIDENCE
It is a commonplace among prison teachers that a young man out-of-group, a pupil removed by chance from peer support is just a man deprived of reasons for pretence and often breaks into candid speech. He spoke of father, brothers (no sister), of the parent who on small provoking gave himself to violent rage and afterwards said sorry. Among the brothers there would be real digging matches. When they were out for instance in a pub the one who went to the bar for drinks might go with two black eyes. I’ve a hard time trying to hold my temper: I have a good durability but when it cracks, it cracks. The arresting officer, the Sergeant, had shown himself a kindly man, so the sentence in the end was twelve instead of the thirty months expected. Most Guards, he thought, would not have shown such understanding of the opposite side. Their mother had left in ‘83: he’d had birthday cards but not every time. Here, where the jocose insult still
18
Aidan Hayes
shocks less than a word of praise, I resist an urge to deny trustworthiness; allow myself to picture the local scribe sought out by those with vital family news to pass. They entrust him with intimacies. And once in a great while someone comes to tell his story and leaves it behind him: just wanting someone to know, someone to take note.
I KNOW, I KNOW
Despite changes of address that didn’t alter what demanded alteration – and changes of school that taught you little at the time – despite questions later, answers squeezed out under pressure – in spite of all these years of nodding impatient assent to Brel’s claim that arriving is a thing we never stop doing – in spite of all you fall again, and hard, for the notion that this time, this time…
19
Occupational Hazard
RUE BERNARD JUGAULT
From a few days’ stay in a proper house on a street of high– fenced gardens, named for a union man shot at thirty-three, I have no memory of warm handshake but a tortoise ancient in suburban grass– two scrawny fledgling pigeons between shutter and glass making a show with stabbing eye, unhardened beak. And the smell of droppings heavy in July heat– a plaited plant someone thought to tame flexing coils, pulling railings out of shape. And what had my hostess offered but the freedom of the property? And what did I presume?
20
Aidan Hayes
ONCE ONLY for Claud Cockburn
A man who honoured us by moving here tells of the difficulty for the observer familiarity brings: all those pungent impressions, so eyewatering at first, smudge, dilute, combine to shape a vague mass of autumn landscape. Therefore I, being of sounder mind – having stumbled that bit closer to my self– feeling like an immigrant in a new land and sensing the moment’s once-onlyness, have determined to set down some– thing of the colour of the time. It is a time when soft pink blossoms stick to car roofs and windscreens, turning thoughts to weddings, sunny exam halls. It’s a time when the dreaming and the waking seem to be finding common ground– ground that may support my step. And just in case 1’d settle for an easy freewheel to a place of boundless ease one flower insists on my attention: scarlet tulip, quite unhinged, lets its sides down – no time now for modesty or prudence.
21
Occupational Hazard
LOSING THE INSPIRITING LEAVEN
1. The Retreat: the present time Inside the thick-walled bunker, the most powerful of the aristocrats in their robes. The building does have window slits, but those inside seem unaware of this. If you did get a look in, you’d see the princes’ backs turned to the world beyond the walls. They murmur prayers, mourn the sinfulness of humankind, and the end of the practice of listening to one’s betters.
2. The Movement: after the conversion The bunker’s a museum. Women and men – ordinary, decent – gather together in groups. In the open. They talk, and read, and attentively listen. Their focus: Jesus the Christ. And their living lives. And the world. A guiding thought is: What is to be done? And: Priorities now? To cheer each other on, the people speak names aloud: Hildegard! – lrenaeus! – Roncalli! – Teresa! – Assisi!
22
Aidan Hayes
FOR ONE WHOSE HAPPINESS CONCERNS ME It’s true I’m no saint, but I’m loved and 1 love
I would find a way of slipping in a question between the alert and the busy being between Of course – that’s as expected and the chance of being surprised between being good as you can manage today and pushing on unrested for the next upward slope between all the doing things that come urgently to hand and keeping an eye on the heart’s quiet garden between maintaining an uncomplaining stance and confessing you might learn to like a hug between having departure times at your fingertips and the’ giddy delight of watching timetables turn to flame and smoke between dealing with shale, seawrack, stones incoming and standing sentinel even on mornings of flat calm I would find a way to persuade you that happiness for humans is as free of deserving – and as vital– as plankton is for whales
23
Occupational Hazard
SUMMER WISHES for Joanne Woodward and Mr C
May your summer flies all be mayflies Your sole moaning neighbours be seagulls Your rainbows arcs of kingfishers May shimmers of starlings incite you to sing May your fanning carers be roseate terns Your scruffy ducklings turn out to be misnamed May anything fishy be the real thing a-swim May the trusting robin never escape your line of sight May your snowy owl keep an eye on coming horizons The swallow know your outbuildings as home May the fox’s sharp bark be your All’s well May wild poppies thrive on your ground
24
Aidan Hayes
SO, WHAT’S THE SECRET
My first villanelle went well: each line clicked into place. For all that I can tell publishers will yell At last! A poet of taste! My first villanelle went well. I’ll send lames Wright to hell: my life has been a waste – ha! For all that I can tell formalist verse will sell– my words win pride of place. My first villanelle went well. I might quit this monkish cell– face the human race– for all that I can tell. . . Right: what’s the magic spell? I might toss them off like aces for all that I can tell! My first villanelle went well. . .
25
Occupational Hazard
SELF AND SELVES
You burst from the cold print of a novel – your Kate to my Jules, and him. The cold bedroom under a low roof, the thin sponge mattresses in orange at the top of the so-marrow stairs. You did not fear to weep or rage, to laugh, giggle, be afraid to look long down the well of self and selves.
26
Aidan Hayes
ADRIFT ON TREACHEROUS WATERS for Freddy White
This is no Big Brother show, my son no picnic, no easypeasy, but you don’t see us resigning. We stick to our guns and – we don’t fire our friends, or force them to go unrewarded. Yes it’s hard to be put in charge but we keep the ship sailing. And if one of ours is going under we turn right about and strain all the crew’s resources. What’s that? – Core values? Don’t you remember: Look after the family, Michael. A man who doesn’t mind his family is not a man.
27
Occupational Hazard
THE WARM
A youngish man who always picks a seat with space for two. The woman with pained, exhausted face: the plaster cast – hospital visit, repeat. The one who sits right behind the driver and talks earnestly to his tilting head. A courteous man – hearing more than he speaks– seems to feel his fellows need acknowledging. One woman starts at unexpected sounds: when she laughs she is a child’s sudden hunch of delight, hand to mouth. A man getting off thanks the driver by name without fail – each time the same elaborate form of words. The one quietly requesting to be let off at her favoured corner, by the crossing. The man looking fixedly out the window. This woman knows whose funeral is slowing our progress. And she knows things about the deceased she decides – God forgive me – to mention. A man delays disembarking to offer words to the driver with a heartiness that seems pre-decided. The one who loves laundering, and joke shops, and bargains, and funny hats. The ones who get off at the welfare office. The woman who puts chocolate treats in our hands.
28
Aidan Hayes
YOU MIGHT HAVE PRAYED On hearing the head of a respected Christian Church declare support for the present war
You might have prayed or taken thought, then spoken to power with resolution. You might have looked to Nathan, say, when he drew the king into a story – hooked him with a poor-man, rich-man tale. He blew on a spark of indignation till the man of power lost patience with the rich man in the story: Such a man deserves to die! You know all this: you know it – how Nathan, speaking for another master, hardly thinking of the risk he’s taking, shows the king how he’s condemned himself. If they should ban religion here – say for stirring up the meek – who would deserve arraignment for passionate belief?
29
Occupational Hazard
THIS LAND IS
There’s the senior welfare officer – without notice – marks your file P.S. So, when payment day arrives your bank has nothing for you. A friend’s kindness gets you through the weekend. When you go to the place on Monday you are not at your most serene: she didn’t have your number – needed to see you. Simple. A taxman younger than you with a chronic sneer: We send you these forms so you can fill them in! And the dear ESB finds you seriously overdue. You’ll be disconnected without further notice. And here is the cost. Plus the price to reconnect. It’s signed by a Michael something. He’s the computer’s front man. At their combined training weekends the guiding thought is this: Address them as if they’re slow-witted. Use the headmasterly tone. That’ll let them know what’s what, and who is really who.
30
Aidan Hayes
INNOCENTS I believe / I do / I believe it’s true Tom Paxton
See, it’s for the government to govern. And the market – well, the market’s free. The banks know well what they’re doing, Fireguards are not made of paper. They’re safe. Trustworthy. See? Of course there are budgets and Budgets– One for the dear managers of the business, One for those who hope, and vote, and pay. Leinster House is not a playhouse! The Taoiseach’s a well-meaning guy. We’re lucky: we’ve got democracy. The citizen rules – okay? We hand them our power. Why? It’s easier this way. We trust them don’t you see. And the banks mind the money– And okay, it’s not their money, But they know what they’re at: We agree? Now we must pull together. Bankers. Government. We.
31
Occupational Hazard
FOR J.K.
Li Po my friend if I had some red wine I’d drink it to you to your moon, to your moods I’d drink to the small life to the trusting black dog one leg shaved to the shoulder to young Jimmy on the road and one of his bikes to the woman who chuckles at my feeble joke to my son’s posted gift the postcard from my daughter I’d drink to the small and I’d stay off the water
32
Aidan Hayes
THE S.F.R. FILE: FURTHER EXTRACTS
… Well, fair play, Mícheál. They were wrong. The naysayers, the doom-an’-gloomers. God, the way they were talking you’d say we’d signed our own death warrant. The Kilgarvan factor how are yeh! The way the lefties were rubbing their hands you’d have thought the bloody revolution was about to happen. Ha! And you chose the exact right tone, Taoiseach, the morning after. No crowing, no triumphalism. Just quietly commending the nation for complying. Just right. Statesmanlike. Dignified. I must say, Mícheál, I had niggling doubts. I mean I didn’t believe the people would rise up in a body, the fag in the mouth, the throwaway lighter in the paw, and blow smoke in our faces – defy their lawful masters. No, no. Of course not. The Irish people! Not their style. Not the nature of the beasts. But still – And now, Taoiseach, now that we’ve staked out our piece of the moral high ground – Decisive action on the people’s behalf, Brave leadership in a matter of vital national importance, Governments must govern and so forth – now we can afford to kick up a bit of dust. I mean who will now believe us capable of playing to voters’ prejudices? 33
Occupational Hazard
We might admit to the odd human failing: that’ll be one in the eye for the accusations of arrogance. And we must publicly shun the ones who get caught, possibly drop someone overboard. Ah, Mícheál, it’s a glorious country When you know how to handle it!
SOMETIMES THERE’S JUST a rag of black plastic rat-tat-tatting on a wire a moon slightly squashed and a star blinking behind slack telephone cables
34
Aidan Hayes
SONGS Nik Kershaw, 1983
I think of you sighing out my name or looming over me in the smiling dark – your eager mouth, breasts offering like soft fruit, your child-modesty, adult assurance. I think of you when I hear certain songs – songs that hold back the sunset like the wedge that saves a sash window from disaster.
POINTERS for Johnny Mercer, singerpoet
Loosestrife, knapweed, mallow sink back. The roadside blood-orange, black, water-green. Rowan heavy with clusters of red. Buddleia no longer draws butterflies. Three starlings in a tree’s swaying top – one swallow breasting the grass. Not a bee bumbles. Grounded rook and jackdaw point into the wind, unmoving.
35
Occupational Hazard
THIS IS THE TIME
the time that flaps around the spike of January sixth when the half-pulled curtains of a house on the edge of town make it seem abandoned or asleep when crisp brown-paper leaves cling to a beech hedge and hydrangeas have a smoke-damaged look when the astrakhan collar of grass round the gate of a house for rent has just two isolated daisies when the wine-and-grey human tide on temporary release from school divides and flows again in shops at lunchtime when in Paddy Kelly’s field the palomino that looks muddy grey lopes toward me and nibbles at my pockets when the plain green tinsel star on a front wall is unstapled This is the time I hate
36
Aidan Hayes
FIRST EVENING OF THE LONG SUMMER HOLIDAY
I’d like to have come home To find something changed: The crumbs and papers On the kitchen table Not in their old positions, The kettle warm, Dust disturbed, The spider moved To a new location– Not lurking there, An old prey still In the spreading weave.
37
Occupational Hazard
COMING
One more time to take a love Like taking a train So as not to be alone To be elsewhere… Among the stark stumps from municipal pruning– The hornet-drone of shredders– The flowers placed on family plots– From floral wreath to floral wreath Coloured shapes point to earth now, waiting– People in doorways, islanded by sudden rain– Leaf-litter rasps underfoot: Death hangs up our Dulcinéas Quick gleam of heaped yellow, in yellow headlights– Rain blotches, then blackens the street– October weather– I’m coming. I’m coming! Failing of colours, rationing of light– Word comes, among interrupted programmes: He has come to destination We approach the platform Jacques BREL died 9 October 1978 at 59
38
Aidan Hayes
GIVING A TALK AT MIDNIGHT
What remains of a singular night some twelve months since is the relentless ragged slap of water on concrete as I sat on the divan shuffling cuttings and notes before going to meet my audience. And the black road, tilted, and the rainwater rushing down the slope. There was the tree against a standing lamp raising dancer’s arms high above its trunk as I walked in the school gate. Walking home at a jaunty hour, a corrugated barn roof had a lead-pencil sheen, and I doffed my hat to the ringed moon. What remains is what black ink holds– the rest is air and viva voce.
39
Occupational Hazard
OF EXPERIENCE Teaching is a wonderful career, but if you lose the energy for the task or become burnt out, there is no job that will kill you quicker. – Susie Hall, ASTI President (Easter 2005)
There are phrases that when you take them in make you go very still. They can bring a sort of withdrawal, a retraction of the neck. They start a breathy yes from some unvoiced place. They have the force of a tight verse of Frost’s, of a voice like Freddy White’s. Hinting at high purpose they’re tinted by experience. Their view is unillusioned. They catch you as a photographer might, and freeze you in one posture. Truth’s come to call. It makes no demands– speaks its piece,
40
Aidan Hayes
moves offstage. You are shaken, consoled: someone knows what it’s like. Someone speaks with that authority. Here is a teacher routinely harnesses heart and mind, sees the work as service. You’d want your own kids exposed to such care. And when will decision-makers learn to give heed to such voices– to hold their tongues, give up cheap tabloid tactics, check the true meaning of sinecure?
41
Occupational Hazard
SHADES OF GREY
It was our time of the Golden Tiger – a creature whose sense of place, of identity is diffident, lightly worn: Asian, Irish, other… A time of hilarity – the era’s mottos Give it a lash! Go for it! Ya-hoo: we’re worth it, at last! I was born in’ 47, grew as best I could through the coughing fifties, under sodden layers of the national inferiority complex. So – when some gleeful broadcaster pronounced inferiority dead I stiffened: Not so fast, not so fast. Now, people from another part of Europe file silently on stage to address those with ears to hear: We harboured a chronic corrosive sense. Then we saw a tiger rise among us. We were brought in the bitter end to distinguish confidence from that other thing.
42
Aidan Hayes
THE FIRST CASUALTY OF POWER or A Ruler Is Not A Lexicographer
Words, that matter – take the weighty ones that come from the throat of Power… By loyal majority, a new offence: not incitement – glorification of violence. The weighty ones, the words that matter, the ones with tangible consequence – interrogation, detention, visits from friends. Glorify and justify are brother verbs, says Power: by easy majority a new offence. And explanation means justification, Power proclaims. Nouns and verbs, the ones that matter, we’d better get clear in our heads. ’ So, therefore the explainer justifies! Power opines. By dazed majority a new offence. What did you say, father – Hopkins? “The just man justices”– yes? I know you did not call the just man justifier. The matter of words – weight, purpose, dimensions: absolute majorities the true offence.
43
Occupational Hazard
COUPLE – COLOUR
After the delighted shock – a cloud: full pink against a pale blue ground – my gaze is drawn to the sodium streetlamp in its nearly-there time: the deep rosy light ceding slowly to uniform yellow. An ice cream between wafers – colour to colour : strawberry, banana. A boy named Denis – help with homework in his mother’s pub: a glass of raspberry and orange my reward.
44
Aidan Hayes
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD for André Cayatte
Enforced quiet would bring him out in giggles. In the school library he’d activate puppet-eyebrows, ventriloquist-lip, clown’s starting eyes: a man who couldn’t rub shoulders without a nudge that says, I’m here – are you? He seemed to enjoy watching solemness crumble: perhaps he found stillness unnerving. Now, he stands immobile, stone face demanding silence– words like sharpened weapons, questions with barbs to snag the unwary. He’s telling himself they’re all the same: What kind of a fool d’you take me for? A bigger one than you? It may be a common case of flayed nerve-ends, or some feeling denied its proper object. Or is it the resentment of a salaried man of whom much is expected, and who, vaguely glimpsing causes too remote, slides into a bitter one-man work-to-rule?
45
Occupational Hazard
CONSIDERING THE POSSIBILITY OF PENNING A POEM OF SELF-PITY
Father Gabriel comes to try a way through the locked ears of Mendoza who’s slumped in his own chosen stink. He puts questions and listens to the man who’s killed his own brother in a sword fight the boy could not win. Gabriel gets him to take the step up into penance – one step up from despair. He doesn’t mention despair. Mendoza sticks hard to this penance – beyond reason, beyond endurance: the endurance of Gabriel’ s companions on the trek into mountainous jungle. They are intolerant of masochism, real enemies of hate, these ones: they complain to Gabriel about excessive suffering. But Mendoza clings tight
46
Aidan Hayes
to his burden. Now one man bares a knife and moves. Mendoza starts backward– a half-step, no more. Now he stands his ground, makes no move to defend or attack, he the lethal swordsman. Each of the others strains to step in – everyone but Gabriel. The knifebearer, something vivid in his face, steps up and severs the cord that joins man and load with a loud outbreath. The weighty parcel of swords and armour hits the ground, bumps over the cliff they have climbed. The man glares at his rescuer, feels his lightened shoulder smart. Thinks of his weapon: I decide what I deserve.
47
Occupational Hazard
WORK for Breandán O hEithir
A long time I thought Pasternak’s doctor-poet had it right: poemmaking’s not the same as useful work. One needs both. Work to be part of something larger, poems for something else again. There were moments in the classroom when, sticking to the curriculum, something occurred. I read Three Lambs to a young class and something in the silence hit me : Did you like the story? They nodded. Did anyone not? Silence absolute. O’Flaherty, I said, was an old man – still alive. We could write to him. We wrote– said everyone liked his story. Twenty-six names were signed. Months later his reply: God bless the people of Cork. Didn’t they beat hell out of the Black-and-Tans.
48
Aidan Hayes
There were extracurricular moments. And there were times of bitter warfare when I was the prison warder keeping my herd of brutes: my mother’s death was my excuse. Poemmaking was a thing I did on the side – when holidays came and the cries of school were still. One October I found myself writing: If I do not make poems I am a scoundrel. The words were strange and clear. It was a thing I had to do– but still in the margins, the unworked margins of the field. Now I know the caring professions can be the habitat of the needy. I was a good teacher because good teachers are loved. I was a bad teacher because I didn’t see work is not enough.
49
Occupational Hazard
50
Aidan Hayes
51
Occupational Hazard
r
52
L A P W I N G PUB L I C A T I O N S
AIDAN HAYES
Aidan Hayes was born in Cork City 1947. Most of his working life was in teaching. He spent a number of years in France. The tug-of-war between working and writing was resolved at The Poet’s House, Falcarragh, (2001 - 2002). He translated and edited from French a personal selection of singer-poets from France and Quebec. Publications: Richesses, Southword Editions, Cork, 2007. Two Halves, Lapwing Publications, Belfast, 2008. Notes Towards a Love Song, Doghouse, Tralee, 2011 Aidan now lives in Falcarragh, County Donegal.
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
ISBN 978-1-909252-22-6 ÂŁ10.00