Donall Dempsey

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

MIST CREEPING SLOWLY

The morning found
only blood & feathers.

The fox leaving
only Death

& its presence

& the gossip of the frightened chickens.

My uncle swearing
‘til the sky was blue

(early morning clouds that the sun shone through) .

An embarrassed ****
like a mad alarm clock

crying like a cartoon “****-a-doodle-do! ”

My uncle dispatching him
with a quick kick.

“Oh yeah, and where the hell were you? ”

I take in the scene of the massacre
& whisper:

“I sure wouldn’t like to be    a chicken! ”

*    *      *

All that next week
my uncle stalked the chicken coup
waiting for the fox

who was clever enough
not to turn up

until the eight day
driven by his hunger & his nature

she stared into my uncle’s cold metallic sight
& the evil acrid smell of a cartridge caught in flight

as both it & the fox(shot through the head)
fell dead

at my uncle’s muddied boot.

My gentle uncle delirious with Death
the frosted air
stained with his breath.

His voice almost transformed
into an animalistic hoot:

“Hey boy, betcha didn’t know I
could shoot! ”

The good side of the fox’s face
seemed to still laugh
at the very idea of Death.

I whimpered:

“I sure wouldn’t like to be    a fox! ”

The countryside
brutal & Biblical

demanding

a life for a life

Yet all I could see
was Death...Death.

Priest-like...

I knelt & whispered
a quick act of contrition
to the fox’s carcase.

My uncle probably thought
I was barmy.

That night in celebration
my uncle wrung a chicken’s neck

(the chicken’s name was Patricia)

& I declined the clean
white breast

still haunted

by the chicken & the fox’s

death.

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

SHOPPING LIST

SHOPPING LIST

after the funeral
your fingerprint lives on
in a jar of Pond's Cold Cream

a shopping list
dug out of a drawer
now a precious artifact

I an emotional archaeologist
unearthing a smile
buried in the past

all our I wills
become the past
tense

the touch of your skin
still so real to me
a teardrop trickles into my ear

Death
unreals you then
makes you more real

I call your mobile
just to hear you say
you are not there

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

EVERY LITTLE FISH CAN SWIM

EVERY LITTLE FISH CAN SWIM

1893
saw the beginning of me.

I was born
in a railway carriage

between somewhere
and somewhere else

in an Europe that
would change with the map

the lines redrawn
by War

some unpronouncable
European nowhere.

A barrel *****
was playing a tune that

would soon be forgotten
on the station platform

when Mamma and I
arrived

at our final destination
the train breathing like a dragon.

Its whistle
cutting through time.

Later I would remember
a little wooden acorn

at the end of a string on the blind
tapping against the window

as if it were admonishing
the dawn demanding

entrance to
the room when I was three and

pulling the blind up and then
pulling the blind down.

"Shadow people"
thrown against the wall

would not survive
a morning.

All night they chattered
amongst themselves

prowling the room
that was holding me.

Debating whether to
eat me now or later.

"Beings" merely made from
the edge of a wardrobe or

a chest of drawers
the brass **** at the end of

my bed where clothes
thrown over a chair

made them come alive
I believe

in them until
I was nearly seven.

Too scared to ***
in the porcelain ***

wetting the bed
to the anger of Mama.

And now 1963
will more than likely see

the end of me
as I am

and the mind
that created who I was

offers me these
fragments of insignificance

that amount
to being a life.

I laugh as Noël
Coward warbles

in his shellac'd world
forever singing

"But I can't do anything at all
but just love you!"

I used to look after this chap who loved Coward as much as I and we would sing all the songs together as I cleaned him up or fed him. He showed me his Dad's diary and the last entry was basically this...so I thought it deserved not to fade away so I wanted to bring him back to a life in words!

Any Little Fish – Noel Coward 1931

Any little fish can swim, any little bird can fly
Any little dog and any little cat
Can do a bit of this and just a bit of that
Any little horse can neigh, any little cow can moo
But I can’t do anything at all, but just love you!

Any little **** can crow, any little fox can run,
Any little crab on any little shore
Can have a little dab and then a little more
Any little owl can hoot (to-whit, to-whoo)
Any little dove can coo
But I can’t do anything at all, but just love you!

Any little bug can bite, any little bee can buzz
Any little snail on any little oak
Can feel a little frail and have a little joke
Any little frog can jump like any little kangaroo
But I can’t do anything at all, but just love you!

Any little duck can quack, any little worm can crawl
Any little mole can frolic in the sun
And make a little hole and have a lot of fun
Any little snake can hiss, in any little local zoo
But I can’t do anything at all, but just love you!

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

A GHAOTH ANEAS! ( O SOUTH WIND! )

A GHAOTH ANEAS!
( O SOUTH WIND! )

My six year old father
stares from a photograph

splendid in his sailor suit
standing outside time.

He will not survive
Ypres.

There is no photograph to show
him as a soldier.

Mother couldn't bear them.
Burned them.

She forever talking to
him in her head

loving his Devonshire
accent.

A thrush is singing from behind
enemy lines.

Spring can't understand
humans and their ways

dresses the trees
in their freshest green.

"Jack...Jack Jack!" she cries
to the wind from the south.

A Ghaoth Aneas!
( O South Wind )

"Sin chugaibh mo phóg ar rith ins an ród
Leigim le seol gaoithe í."

( Here goes my kiss to you rushing along the road
I send it on the wings of the wind.)

South Wind was written in the 1700s by Domhnall Meir-geach Mac Con Mara( "Freckled Donal Macnamara" )in homesickness for his homeland( after he was banished for some 'misdoings' )in County Mayo. This sublime melody has a very Carolan-ish air about it...essence of my Irish childhood. I used to hum it to myself for comfort when my sister Junie was killed in a bus crash back in the world of '67.

A Ghaoth Aneas!

A Ghaoth Aneas na mbraon mbog glas
A ní gach faiche féarmhar
Bheir iasc ar eas is grian i dteas
Is líon is meas ar ghéagaibh

Más síos ar fad mar mbínn féin seal
Is mianach leat-sa séide
Cuirim Rí na bhFeart dhod chaomhaint ar neart
‘S túir don tír sin blas mo bhéil-se!

Sínim aneas ag díonamh cleas
Nach ndíonann neach san saol so
Mar íslím gaimh is scaoilim leac
Is díbrim sneachta as sléibhte

Ó taoi tú ar lear go bhfuí tú mo neart
‘S gur mian liom do leas a dhéanamh
Go bhfúigfe mé mo bheannacht ins gach aon tslí ar mhaith leat
Is choíche i gCathair Éamoinn!

A Chonnachta an tseoid, an tsuilt ‘s an spóirt
I n-imirt ‘s i n-ól an fhíona
Sin chugaibh mo phóg ar rith ins an ród
Leigim le seol gaoithe í

Tá mise beo i mboige na seod
Mar a mbrúitear gach sórt bídh dhom
Ach is mian liom fós tarraing d’bhur gcomhair
Muna gcluine mé ach ceól píopa!

O South Wind!

O South Wind with the soft clear drops
You that make every sword grassy
Bring the fish to the waterfall, give heat to the sun
And abundance of fruit to the branches

If it is far to the north where I once lived
That you are minded to blow
May the King of Power preserve your strength
And give the taste of my mouth to that country!

I blow from the south, performing feats
Which no one else on earth can do
For I lay winter low and scatter the ice
And banish the snow from the mountains

Since you are in need you shall have my strength
And I want nothing more than to help you
I shall leave my blessing in every place you choose
And always in Cathair Éamoinn!

O blissful, joyous, sporting Connacht
Home of gaming and of wine-drinking
Here goes my kiss to you rushing along the road
I send it on the wings of the wind

I am living in splendid luxury
Where every kind of food is dressed for me
But yet I am fain to draw towards you
If I should hear but the music of the pipes!

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

FOR WHAT ARE WORDS WORTH?

FOR WHAT ARE WORDS WORTH

I wandered lonely
through a crowd

lost to myself now
that I'd lost you

gathering even your footsteps
peeling your shadow from my wall

remembering that lost last kiss
did it have to end like this

"...beside the lake, beneath the trees....
...when all at once I saw a...."

host of saffroned monks
their robes " ...fluttering and dancing

in the breeze..." and behind them
bunches and bunches of daffodils

outside a florist
chanting Hare Krishna

in all their yellow voices
delighting in their day

and for a second I
forgot my pain

dancing across a zebra crossing
with an old old woman and

a little
yapping dog.

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

LITTLE RED PLANET

LITTLE RED PLANET

Like a perfect little planet
the tiniest strawberry of ever & ever

sat in the universe
of your palm

us two
nothing but specks
(you in a blue dress)

in the middle of the hugest field
in the world

green as
Forever is.

“Eat it..! ”
you laugh
“...in one bite! ”

Offering me the little red planet
in the universe of your open hand.

I lap at it
licking up the taste of it

intense as
the taste

of ever & ever is

the deliciousness
of your laughter

but the money
in the meter of memory

runs out

and the loveliness
of your laughter

delicious as
a little red planet

(the salty tang of your hand)

hides
once again

in the mystery of Time

Donall Dempsey Aug 2018

LEACHT CUIMHNEACHÁIN ( Memorial Monument )

LEACHT CUIMHNEACHÁIN
( Memorial Monument )

Oh if only I
had an ounce

of your laughter
an iota of a smile

but you are where
all measurement falls away

and time itself
tatters and tears

fades

memory both
blessing and curse

the ghost
of the mind.

I make you a cairn
adding word upon word.

I call your name
to make you real again

"Brian...Brian. . .Brian!"

***

He was chopping wood and I was gathering turf when I had to remark on a little heap of stones: "Ha look at that Bud...ya would swear blind someone had built them up!" And he said: "Yeah...I did!" It looked both natural and at the same time had an arrangement ya wouldn't find in nature. Bud said: "Ya know when ya told me that there is always a little collection of stones placed in some pattern on French graves....well, when I am working I just take a stone from here and there over a period of time and let it build into whatever shape it wants to be. I call it a monument to the moment and I build them ever since Mam died. I take bits and bobs from the landscape and build them to touch the sky in their own little way to talk to herl...to somehow reach her in this little simple act. People either notice or they don't...or walk through them and I just build another and another in time time after time.

I do this now for him...my little brother and for my Da. But I also build a cairn of words placing one on top of another and let them find their own way and their own balance. So if you are ever passing Dempesys and see a little clump of stones stolen from the landscape to talk to the sky then ya know who they are talking to.

With such little things does one try to fight off the immense sorrow and loneliness.

Words and stones...stones and words...both are never enough...never enough.

The best thing I can say about myself is that I am. . .

BRIAN DEMPSEY'S BROTHER