Today the Irish people witnessed an eclipse in their senses. The morning came over all queer.  Nobody noticed, except the king of bookworms in the book of Kells, and the mice in the Campanile.   I witnessed the eclipse from a windowless room on the 4th floor of the Arts block.  Edmund Spenser's poem, The Faerie Queene,  shall henceforth be named, Long ****, by jury of 5 English Lit. Students and a Lecturer.  Also, Sinn Fein plans to build Jerusalem in Ireland's green and pleasant land.  

Lines written last night over a cup of sugary tea in a public house in North Dublin.

Here Now - Where?
There
-Far
          near
  -right of Berehaven.

         Lookout!
  everywhere.
... fast moving.

  - on the right-

followed       by      the left

                          __ A great many places

Yet, not very many.  
But always:

Here Now - Where?

THERE

Hey man, I was just down at the club, and I heard some swingin' blank verse.

When Hamlet was young,
All was good,
Elsinore was proud,
Hamlet was young,
Ophelia too.  

Now he is older,
Not everything is good,
Some things still are,
His uncle is his father in law,
This is not so good.  

Now he is dead,
Ophelia is dead,
Laertes is dead,
Gertrude is dead,
Cladius is dead,
Yorick... is dead,
but he was at the start,
so he doesn't count.  
Rosen... Guilden... dead
Old hamlet is dead,
Plonius is dead.
Horatio is alive;
can't imagine he's very happy,
because everyone else is dead.

Laurence Olivier is handsome,
he's dead too.

An Irish judge recently commented that cyclists should pay insurance to protect people driving over priced cars.  

I suggest that idiots in powerful positions in the judiciary should pay insurance for the possible damage that they may cause to this country.

Cycling is the last vestige of the romantic, facilitating free movement with minimal dealings with capitalists, exploitative business people, bus drivers, and the self interested.

It would tie your brain up in a knot,
the clink of glasses on the barman's grate,
and the tones of creaky Dublin croaking,
In darkness, mourning the death, of the daytime light.  

It would I say, to grasp the slender neck,
and to lift it, smiling, glancing beyond the glass,
at winking eyes and clinking pints of plain,
My brain is in a knot, when I think of you.  

I held you on the banks, of the  royal canal,
knew then what all the bards and lovers mean,
say it was the light reflected in their eye,
I never did hear tell, of eyes to rival glass

Yet confound revealing daytime light,
you are liquid of the night, stout and dark,
rebuke me not, till your own brain too,
Has been left in knots, by the dark slender boy.

Take it to Glasnevin,
and write IHS on the stone.  
That's what I'll be saying,
IHS with the voice in my mind.  
After Michaelmas is gone,
IHS, pleadingly, a lamb of God,
and a little after, exaltingly,
from a rooftop garden in the city centre,
where I can plant flowers.

Says one: Repent.

Says another: No.

Says one to another: Repent.  

Says another: No.

Says one: Repent.  

Says another: No.  

Says one: Repent.

Says another: I will not.  

Says one: Oh, alright then.  Have a nice day.

A wild cow defecates in the waters of the fledgling Liffey,
as it eeks oozes and seeps from the sheep **** of a Wicklow Vale,
running to the loo through the coronation plantation.

The descendant of the brown bull of Cuailnge moves on to the next waterway of Ireland.  What fun.

A great many people cross the Liffey and dance on the shore,
At Ringsend the Pigeon House falls to earth, the dust settles,
Cuchulain leaps from Bull to Bull and retreats into the mountains.  
I linger for some time watching the waters pass beneath ha’penny bridge.
I’ll find me a garret, and in that garret,
Curse in undertones Windows Vista,
******* to the **** stanzas of Homer,
Drink cold coffee with the blood of a nation,
Finally, say with surety,
Here is a poem which has taken everything, and given nothing,
Here is everything that meant something to somebody at some time.

Living under them,
be nice.

When Michael Collins came, first from the courts of England,
which in low and lofty Londoun lately were helde,
while Thames there with treachery and treasoun did truly ring,
was Ireland ill split and beset with ignoble stryfe.  
Yet there a land lately formed was, where still folk lyve on mydllerde.

Though it is not in this warlike time of Dev that we our tale do set,
after these tymes of troubling stryfe, contentioun salted still the land.

Fine Fail and Fine Gael, then foes many yeres remained
till noblest amongst them, in qualities none lacking,
did do battle in old Dublin and vanquish the dred enemy.  
That mon who dreded nought, nightly then held his court in fair Dail Eirinn.  
Enda was called that man, and everysince has his noble courte endured.  

There, as Chrystmasse came, was assembled his cabinet fayre:
there Sir Wilmore the red, who waited on the grete lorde in readiness.  
There with grete courtesey, the kings coins to keep, sat Sir Noonan the balde.  
There Sir Reilly, learned in lore of leach and herb, who on erde had little left to lerne.  
Eek Sir Varadkar the gaye who granted was, the grete kinges horses to groome.  
Laste, the lovely layde Burton, who, the rede rose of Wilmore would long after carry.  

Other knyghtes numerous were there, but of these now, nought will I
tell,
for fallen to feasting were this fayre companye al and fayne would I not,
in tedious trials of descriptioun, your patience for to trye.

Arthur dear, don’t fret.

Papers, papers, get your papers.  

I have never been to the sea.  I always wanted to go to the sea.  

No, never since my husband died.  

Oh aye, a sight to behold.  

The rascals of Ballydrim out in force.  

The maid peept out the window.

The fryar and the nun.  

An old man is a bed full of bones.  

Is he not, is it not, is it not?

Rose is red and rose is white.  

New new nothing.  

Row well ye mariners.  

I have never seen the sea.  

The pauper and the layman, the priest and the scoundrel, all moving
with intent.  

Sometimes, fleetingly, never anything less.  

Profound, very, yes dreadfully profound.  

Labour in vaine.  

In great concentric circles about the time your husband died.  

Biting the bullets one by one, out on the green fields of Amerikay.  

Interest rates climbing on the national stew fund.  Spiralling into a new dawn of exoneration of traditional values.  

Gracie did all those things and more.  

And the quaker danced.

Rose is red and rose is red.  

For judge and jury.  

Very very far.

Quite near actually.  

Further than strictly possible.  

In all reason dear.  

75 miles from the sea.  Exactly.

And another.

And another.

AND another.  

Drawing to a conclusion.

Bliss.  

Seemingly.

Fleetingly.  

(pause)

Have at thy coat old woman!

So, Mr Nimoy,
Your time has finally come,
Your long and prosperous life is done,
And now your being typecast in a better place.
Nomore will you voyage through space,
Or sing those silly songs on youtube.
It was always your tube, Nimoy,
When you paced the bridge of the Enterprise.  
Now you've been beamed up for good,
And your first officer's log is closed.

Geoffrey Saucer

Siegfried Bassoon

W.B. Yeast

Sylvia Bath Tub

Adrienne Ditch

James Joist

Samuel Bucket

Edgar Allan ***

gin-***/gin-***/gin-***/gin-***/gin-***

Go on, file a paper,
make an imaginary notice of imaginary things,
and build on this a physical entity.  
See how deaf the masses will go,
from hearing the Latin tongue:
parchment, and paper,
tomes of dust and sand.  
Make a rule because you can,
and cement again the fetters,
our fathers and mothers cleft in twain.  

Ireland is still an English land,
while English law remains.  
Tories breed like rabbits,
so don't ask me what's wrong,
why you're unsatisfied with your oppression,
why enough is never enough,
till the colonial fetish is propagated,
into every heart and mind there,
worked deep into the furrows of our holy ground.  

Will you never have done?
Are you not content with your own misery,
without inflicting it on others?
Is it not enough to be in chains,
but to love and ****** those chains?
  
Oh mighty sculptors of our race,
chip chip away and see what's left.

1: der Sauerkraut.  Ja!  Sauerkraut mit Wacholderbeere ist naturlich sehr lecker...........................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­.................................................................­................................................................O­h yes, that's the other one.  2: gin.  GIN.  gingingingingin.  g-i-n.  gin.

It is raised a corpulent Spirit,
dangling it legs suggestively,
over the abyss of national identity,
an ideological state apparatus, BANG!

Mind the gap of danger when boarding and alighting trains.

Who is to say,
we cannot break our bond with the earth,
that we are too strongly tethered?
Not I for one.
Nor stone age man who leaps to death in mimicry of the birds,
nor the prisoner who, in confinement,
looks to the sky,
framed with the walls wherein he lies,
and says to himself, or herself, nay, I cannot fly.
And could I fly, I would touch the earth again,
or else burn up in the stratosphere.  
Nay, nor the wild fowl, who may traverse 100 miles at a stretch,
ere they return to the earth.  
Nor ashes carried in the air and bourn away upon the trade winds.  
Who would admit an eternal debt to the earth,
which by every step we repay?  
Least of all them overcome with wonder,
at infinite depth, at scale, at cold beauty,
at the splendid simulacrum of the cosmos.  
Who then would hold me back by a leg or an arm,
who would through envy deny a splendid assimilation with the vasty domains of the other,
for what word, what momentary vocalisation of the earthbound
can in all justice give it name?  
But in good faith, commit my body to it,
and I shall move throughout the eternal regions,
and circle in infinite revelry.
Deny me not this wild vanity,
commit not my body to the earth,
and I shall not call you cur, who walks upon the earth,
and there for evermore is tethered.

Erstens:

Muss ich denn?
Du musst.

Soll ich denn?
Du sollst.

Willst ich denn?
Du willst.  

Zweitens:

Liebst du?
Ein Bischen.

Lebst du?
Ein Bischen.  

Schlafst du?  
Wenn es klingelt, schlafe ich -  
wenn der Himmel brennt, und die grosse Götter lacheln.  
Funken und Hörner, sozusagen.  

Ich schlafe meistens nicht.

Verwundert?

Be not overly dependant on government subsidies.

"Earth to earth
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust"

Undertaker wipes hand on trouser leg
wipes away the
Earth
Ashes
Dust

Janus has a grand auld pair of heads:

One looks backwards on all the **** and grime, on the ****, on the limescale, on the mould, on the excrement, on the muck and grit and gunge and gunk, on all that wastage of human time, toiling away, scraping at the rot and the filth and slime, and besmearing the earth afresh, and blessing it.

The other looks forwards on all the **** and grime, on the ****, on the limescale, on the mould, on the excrement, on the muck and grit and gunge and gunk, on all that wastage of human time, toiling away, scraping at the rot and the filth and slime, and besmearing the earth afresh, and blessing it.

The moon shines bright at night,
although I know it shines not.  
Cows in yonder valley chew senseless,
and are milked be twisting their horns.

Oh to live, less conscious thought!

They're dropping bombs on Syria.  
It's Tories to the centre left,
or ****** policy to welfare,
my neighbour to my neighbour.  

397 to 223,
or 40 million to the rest.

Here, all the words in the world,
they are no good to me,
more or less, they are useless,
that much is plain to see.  

These barren syllables mock me,
scorn at my delight,
profundity and beauty desert me,
in mouldering hours of night.

Here the gravity of my world,
certainty in despondency,
what a tall and terrible load,
the language of impotency.

A glass of wine is a fine thing,  
Unless the wine is bad.  

A pint of plain porter is a fair thing,
Unless it isn't very nice.  

A smidgeon of whisky is a grand thing,
Unless the whisky is sub-standard.  

A glass of ale is a proper thing,
Unless the ale is too warm.  

A little gin is an excellent thing,
I have never observed an exception to this rule.

Fills you with majesty it does, this ****** place –
a few stars above.  
When light left this one, Napoleon walked the earth.  
This other, Julius Caesar.  
Wonderful -  The whole dreadful lot of it.  
A train approaches  – headlights and what have you,
colouring the sky pink, like everything else around here –
this strip of crust, this bay, these obscure designs of a people,
moralisers and chastisers and spell checkers breathing temperate breaths.  in and out all day for 160 ka, or there about.  
haughty on pretence – out there on July 26th 1807, the Rochdale sank with a pop, a bang and a glug,
The Prince of Wales wouldn’t be left behind. GLUG GLUG GLUG.  
and the night came over all funny just then,
fizzled into something else for a short while and returned to its current state.  
NOBODY NOTICED

There was a young man from Brazil,
his name was Dickie.

Ah I get scared sometimes.  
Sometimes it is terrible being,
and to be and to be,
it is terrible.  

Oh I do repent me here my shred,
my little of lonely happiness,
which with syntax allowing,
here vanquish shed.  

Nay morn not, but read in accent,
and accent like Sligo people,
W.B. Yeast and the others,
whoever they may honey bee,

for this is Sligo Lament,
me in the lamenting of it,
for two more lines,
Sligo Lament.

There is a tide,
And it is out.

Dear Lord!
Yes?
Oh, hello, I didn't think you were listening.  
I was
Evidently.
I always listen
Well... goodbye then.  
*Yes, goodbye

Kindly,

*******.

Sincerely,
Me

Says the young to the old
on often nights,
why are you here?

Says the old to the young
on dreary nights,
I'm here because I strove.  

Says the young to the old,
on dreary nights,
It can't be so.  

Says the old to the young
on dreary nights,
It is, and shall be.  

And before the morning,
time to wretch and moan,
life lifts you up,
when you think you've got it,
and plunges you back down.

Reasons for the 'no' vote: shipbuilding, NATO/EU membership, David Cameron would be very upset, etc... ad infinitum...    

Reasons for the 'yes' vote: It would be far more interesting for the rest of us to watch Scotland make a hames of the transition.

no

Pliny the somethingth's request for a title
put through the paces of a mincing machine
will form this, the entirety of my presentation,
to you, paid for by the flatulence tax.  

VAT fantastic.  I love the Government.

So, was this Aeneas, who called on Jove to strike him dead, or else end his wanderings?  Was this Aeneas who wept on the deck of his ship?

Malcontent breads poetry as flies circle dungheaps and lay their larvae within.  

This was Aeneas, the cheerful man who wept on board his ship.  

Somewhere between College Park and Westland Row I sank for a moment into the earth.

This was Aeneas, the good.  

So, with the chimneys of the city as rosary beads, I shake my fist at Jove, and repeat the words of Aeneas.

I went to Dalkey Island in a 14 foot boat,
and there stood on a granite slab,
which formed the cap of a granite wall
built by the colonial administration.  
I saw the tracks where the canons used to be and pivot,
and the collapsed vaults of the officer's quarters,
and the fire they had there, in the fire place.  

I pronounced the words,

'Come at me, Napoleon,'

from the cradle of a big gun,
and provoked the dead man's spirit,
dispersed throughout the seas,
to later wet my socks
on the slip in Bullock Harbour.

Phase the first

Will you direct me to Flannigan's ball?  
Flannigan's ball?  I cannot, what's that?
Wait now, or is it Lannigan's ball.
I know where that is, wait till I tell you.

Phase the second

Did you find it alright?
I did yeah.
And was it any good?
No, it was *****.

You transgress

I transgress?

You transgress

No, you transgress.  I have stuck to the brief.

You have not adhered

Have not adhered?  I adhere in every direction.  I have adhered left, right, up, down, and occasionally in circles.  

Oxford comma or no Oxford comma?

Twice the usual number

You rat

YOU rat

You fool

YOU fool

you transgress

To escape for a moment the flagrant mediocrity of hummdrummcommutertaxreturnquiltedjacketfilingcabinetcivilservants­pellcheckingcontractsigninghandshaking, oppressively banal, repetitive, shitness of everyday (notomittingthedayindayoutsuburbanlivingwiththeparentssingleprete­nsiousartsstudentdogpissinginthevegetablegarden blandness of this awfulcrapshortanddissapointing) life?

On Dollymount Strand there is a man,
who picks up sand in his hands,
and lets it slip through his fingers,
and fall back to the earth.  

Fie, Gentle soul,
preserve your wit,
and carry on humanity
to the next ages
with your enduring symbolism.  

Rest not day or night, let sand slip through your hands, and save me from contemplation of my own existence:
Wretched state of terminal reciprocation.

Well then, Jyuss swee Charlie, I suppose.
I hope your French is better than mine, dearest reader.  
And I hope you can draw better than me,
so Scribble on dearest reader.  
If all the world were paper, there would be no grip stronger than that of thumb and forefingers.  
If the world be paper, say with me, reader,
'Come the three corners of the word in arms,
and we shall shock them.'

Some pomes stick to the wall like spaghetti,
And filch meaning from better poets.  
So take not the dower of my time,
And I'll make no obloquy against ye petty scriveners.

They replaced it with a thing.  
It's called the N6.

....And that auld triacontrahedron went jingle-jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal....

-time passes
-it does
-yes, dreadfully

That which in day the brightest burns,
at night is seen to pale,
when sun and moon resolve in turns,
to light the merry earth below,
with spirit for the coming dawn.  
The faintest evanescent glow,
will light the path of one and all.  

The poet’s lamp is shepherd’s sun,
though barren it may seem,
bard and flocksman alike are won,
to reverence for the midnight star,
which though the tides each way may draw,
the greatest power it has by far,
is guidance in the darkest hour.