"coventry" poems
Many people write a "bucket list" of things they want to do before they die. Now in my 80th year, I don't have the time or the energy to do things that others might aim for, but I have during my life visited many places, seen many things, and enjoyed many experiences that I would have been sorry to miss. There have also been some events that I would have preferred not to experience, but which have enriched my life in different ways, and which I remember with a kind of sad affection.
Some of these are very personal to me, and would not be interesting to most people, but read the note if you wonder why I chose them.
Here then is what I might call
My Reverse Bucket List
Towns and cities – architecture & atmosphere
Barcelona, Spain
Venice, Italy
Oxford, England
Jerusalem, Israel
Luxor, Egypt
Varanasi, India
Hiroshima, Japan
Pompeii, Italy
Other locations
Galápagos islands, Ecuador
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
North Woolwich, London
Churches
St Paul's Cathedral, London
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Coventry Cathedral
Córdoba Cathedral, Spain
Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Other structures
Taj Mahal, Agra
Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland
Royal Festival Hall, London
London underground system (because it was the first, and I rode it for a long time). Also the more splendid underground railways of Mexico City and Moscow.
Avebury Ring, Wiltshire, England (the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, and much more primitive than Stonehenge)
Bayeux Tapestry
"Angel of the North" statue, Gateshead, England
"Christ the Redeemer" statue, Rio, Brazil
Events
Messiah at Royal Festival Hall, Feb 1959, with the girl later to be my wife
St John's night, Spain, early 1990s (?)
Death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, Aug 1997
Oberammergau passion play, 2010
Destruction of World Trade Centre, Sept 2001
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 9:16 AM UTC
Brigid was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
Little's known of Nellie's early years;
Da died before she knew grieving tears,
They'd turn her eyes in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her look is distant,
Her face is blurred,
But recognizable
In an instant.
She was schooled six years
To last a life,
Some math, the Irish,
To read and write.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God and Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie,
Relieved their worry.
War flared, men were few,
There was work in Coventry.
Ireland's thistles were left to bloom.
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin followed,
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
And brought the mill to life again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself
A generator,
Providing power
To lights and wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Daddy's angel.
Is this what turns
A father strange?
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no borders
For brothers and sisters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland.
Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 5:09 PM UTC
I’m walking up hilltop, two men pass, one says,
'Fuck the French, they never have the bottle for a fight’.
To have got here they passed the old Cathedral.
Did they glimpse it as a relic - exploded by incendiary,
ostracised in dubiety, seen fit to feature
only in the focus and snap of foreign tourists?
It is two days before Ramadan. Tonight Tornados
will tear between the Euphrates and Tigris
to illuminate Babylon... live on CNN.
At the top of the hill I pause,
staring at stained glass fragments
still suspended in the apex of frames
and view snacking office workers,
seated upon the benches that have replaced the pews.
Mar 31, 2010
Mar 31, 2010 at 12:30 PM UTC
Bridget was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
What's known of Nellie's early years?
Da died before her grieving tears,
But burn her eyes in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her visage blurred,
Her eyes look distant,
Yet recognizable
In an instant.
She attended school for six short years,
The three R's, some Irish,
And a Doctorate in tears.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God, Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie
To relieve their worry.
War flared up, and men were few,
So the work in Coventry
Left Ireland's thistles to bloom.
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin were carried.
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
To work the flax mill again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself a generator.
And powered the lights and the wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Father's angel.
(Is this what turns
A father strange?)
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no family borders
For brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland in familiar songs.
Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
A serene cottage upon a dreary hillside
Where my mind's listless galaxy of neurons
Synapse in the absolute darkness,
Is painted in Victorian hues, cold and haunting.
Dejection rains down from the leeward sky
With nothing harkened save for the ocean's
Stormy roar and a desolate lighthouse,
Beckoning through the fog and memoirs of the past.
The deeper my soul is carved out with sorrow,
The deeper the hollow can be filled with joy.
But alas, I feel nothing of joy but only a void
Left by the dagger of yesterday's darkening tragedies.
I feel the rain soothe my skin and kiss my cheek
Like the sweetest lover on midnight's embrace,
Yet my moth-eaten quilt of memories only seems
Enough to shelter our legs but ne'er our feet.
My heart feels the warmth of an autumn fire,
Kindling in the crisp rain, bleeding beneath
A rose where we burn in the endless torture
Of our own despondence.
I can feel the blood in my veins turning to fire
As I imagine her fingertips unzipping my spine
As though it were full of secrets and mysteries
Unbeknowst to myself...
I can feel the inferno that rages within my aortic arch
Every moment I imagine losing myself within her
Eyes, glimmering like an eclipse over a midnight
Sea...the Sleepless Coventry.
She unlocks my secrets and weaves them in the bouquet
Of tendrils in her hair like ribbons of crimson and light,
Waving in the vehement northerlies with numbing scents
Of argan and spice.
Her body is but a canvas wrapped neatly around a
Paper mache skeleton, the most beautifully tragic
Foundation known to humanity...
She arrives right on the equinox to set fire to my sorrow,
Intoxicating me with her kiss and infecting me with her smile.
And so enters the conflagration of my soul,
An annihilation of light, blackening my coronary
Artery whilst shooting smoke through my cinnamon
Whiskey tainted veins.
'Tis hard to look through such a misconstrued lens
As such, the Vena Cava Kaleidoscope...
Where the flames burn through the galaxy of neurons
Expending the harrowing memories as its fuel.
I can see the magnetic alloy of her Cobalt eyes reflecting
The fire that consumes me from the inside out.
She pulls on me like the moon pulls upon the tide
As she whispers with her soft, enamored sigh.
I burn in my silent knowing, my liquid mind
Awakening in fervor and strange euphoria.
I burn for the Aurora Infinite.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 3:08 PM UTC
Her Horse didn’t canter in Canterbury
Her braided hair was long and Brown.
She galloped uncovered in Coventry
so that taxes would drop like her gown.
Hot to trot without makeup or Jewelry
Hair undone, long tresses hang down.
A ****** named Tom was observing her
riding through town sans a gown.
A woman of substance and Charity-
Not given to horsing around.-
Her legend comes down from antiquity
That’s how seldom those taxes go down.
Dec 30, 2011
Dec 30, 2011 at 9:45 PM UTC
Dear diary:
Land sakes! Leofric cannot believe I carried through with it. But indeed, today I rode naked along the sparse, meager streets of ye old Coventry.
And whilst my long hair, let down for the occasion, did provide me a jot of modesty; alas! a strong breeze I am most certain granted uncivil eyes to plainly see my top half is much ado about nothing.
Nonetheless, an even more discomfiting fear shall be if some peeping tom espied his fair countess to be no natural blonde at all; just a fare-thee-well lemon juicing, miracle bra wearing charlatan.
On the plus side, I did achieve quite a lovely, even, 'no-lines' tan!
Jul 2, 2020
Jul 2, 2020 at 2:33 PM UTC
I want to feel you breathe,
So cool and languid,
A gentle rise and fall
Of your sweet skin...
Oh so calm and temperate
Like the resting waters
In the glassy fields
At nightfall.
I want to rest my head
Against your flesh,
Pale and cold like
A cooling, winter sunset...
And kiss your [cadaver] eyes
All the while drifting lightly like ash
Along the soft currents
We are carried through.
The tempest carries our bodies
To the Sleepless Coventry
As the Albatross flies
Over head, leading and bleeding.
The night with the eyes of water and
Painted in decay, cries for
The tragedy I wish to
Live...
And 'tis such a tragedy so,
For I want to love you
In the most ardent
Sense, my darling.
My sweet love, I wish to feel the fire inside your
Heart to keep me warm in my coldest hour.
My ocean soul covets the
Warmth and the silent curves
Of your tender body, becoming
One with the waves...
Like a lone kindling flame
Beneath the sparkling waters,
We burn together, attracting
The teeming luminescent.
Dearest lover, let us fall together into the sea...
Hold me tight in your arms...
And these lips will
Caress your watery eyes,
And bring you the loveliest
Cloud of dreams.
Hand in hand,
We are Shadows by the stormy sea...
Restless Shadows and the Sleepless Coventry.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 2:10 PM UTC
Pyramid's mania
Languid pink lotus-eaters
Ominous and luminous
Faded to darkened scars
Eternity held the stars
My how you spoof yourself
Your puerile ferocity
Scuds' untamed velocity
'neath fearsome thunderstorm
Loving before you were born
Now you've gone too far
You're caught in vertigo
Spinning with nowhere to go
No one here you can call,
Nowhere else to hide at all
How's it feel all alone?
Just two inches tall, you stand
Onstage in a cold, strange land
Singing in a silver thong
Quirky tunes grace the throng
Laughter, hisses and boos
Chorus of ridicule
Pomposities of smug cool
Blinding radioactive rage
Taught in a tight cage onstage
You're clamoring now
Your timid voice starts to crack
Look to sky, no one looks back
Blood and sweat fuel the swarm
Furious scuds preview the storm
You ***** a mumbo
APOLLO Coventry hail
The Black Pharaoh wields his flail
Advent of El Diablo
Swiftly comes the deathblow
Aroused by gravity,
****** ground spins before you
******* tingle tango for two
Nobody is calling
You're fearlessly falling
The wind roars in your ears
Ridicule's easing winnow
Distorted faces in windows
Adagio Eternus
Virtue and Disgrace Opus
Beadle cleans the sidewalk
Of a Swan-song's human rubble
Whistling, he's forming a riddle
Dangerous timeless Sphinx
Bested by the modern Kings
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 2:45 PM UTC
. <>
***in my middle life, more than ever, I need a once upon a time.
I forget how easy it is to forget—can’t imagine starting
Anything new. I used to love the satisfying finality
At the conclusion of movies when a giant The End
Flashed across the Big Screen. Maybe one solution:
We could all change our names every day.***
A verse from
"Coventry Lake"
by Bruce Cohen
<>
before I knew why,
before Bruce explained it all,
wink! wink!
change my name quite often
way past the middle years,
can't remember what I forgot,
so a new poem looks sorta maybe
**** familiar, another guy's guise
maybe, can't be truly sure,
but the grasp of time upon my croaking,
gasping voice box, youthful insistent,
give it another parting shot!
yeah,
I still need a once upon a time
e v e r y d a y
rap you a rhyme friend,
crank it out, one more a time,
before hitting the Dead End sign,
gonna sweat one more script from
the po-ahem pores
do it so
it will be your call,
when shouting out,
it's a wrap
when you complete,
and Declaration signature swirl
an emboldened name,
whichever, no matter
everyday
you need
a once more upon time
to indelible a full throated,
Yahoo!
It's mine going out, writing out loud
The End!
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 7:20 PM UTC
Coventry once I left behind and thee too;
But look: I wouldst sail the seas with thee alone!
Thee alone, Immortal, t'at other souls shall feel mocked;
Mine is the night ship and thine the dawn voyage;
Ah, t'at the blind earth knoweth our hearts are its enterprise;
T'at shall be empty not, even th' sun disappears and moonlig't dies.
To thee whom I once loved, and now still do;
To thee for whom t'is heart beats, and shall take revenge;
To thee for whom my soul was blown, and by whom I'th grown alone;
Ah, thee, bewildering me too much by thy passionate desire.
Ah, Immortal, talk me no love talk, but take my life-all of it;
As though all men's streams are but fused in thee, thee alone!
Ah, Immortal, t'at fierce scent of thy red summer skin,
Too is just one of tonight's rampage of flurry wind!
And t'ese lines of love hath thou laid onto me, within
The breath and warmth of so many pleasant places;
Immortal, Immortal, Immortal--and like the beauty of Sofia;
I believeth in thy loveliness, in thy kind and timeless fatamorgana.
Immortal, my mountain, my earth, my everything;
Immortal, the very birth yon icy oceans hath to sing!
Immortal, hath thou seen the decree of fate;
T'at love is still t'ere for us, for 'tis never late?
Thy eyes are like heavens' broad fields beneath, and ever rejoicing;
Ah, darling, for I canst but see all gold and silver--plain and honest in 'em;
A drama like a song, a stage play like a vanished poem;
But one t'at turns again brave and crimson;
Toward' th' very end of the dark season.
I'd love to see thee pry love into my hungry heart again;
To watch thee brutally scorn and defy peace t'at hath existed
Piercing such through thy lonesome heart; raised, but now denied.
Ah, Immortal, I blame th' sun for its gladness;
And raise my contempt toward' the unknowing skies;
Like blood flowers, my heart too is emptied with madness;
T'at one wonders why it exists still and cannot die.
I wanteth to take thee again through the city's old brakes;
And introduceth thee to the idle flames of my song;
As beautifully and vengefully as misty poetry by th' lake;
T'at none is to see--nor to steal from me, as t'ey may fly or pass along.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 6:48 AM UTC
again, and weaving.
we listen to the coventry carole,
the little tiny child, fingers tapping
in time, the medieval, the membrance
of cathedral . walking up hill chanting.
repeatedly. they moved the stairs.
we hold the cotton, the wool
for comfort.
sbm.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
The field gun
hidden behind a grassy bank and flanked by trees
manned by two men and an officer up to their knees in mud
did good!
It fired simultaneously
with a charge by the third infantry
Death stamped on the base of the eight pound shell
it smiled
into the face of Ben Fazackerly who came from Coventry
and Ben fell dead.
(and it has to be said..minus his head)
Perhaps Ben had seen some premonition
that he'd be killed by enemy ammunition
so on Wednesday the week before
he'd decided not to take the chance
of losing his new false teeth in France
and posted them with two weeks pay
to his wife and lover
Betty May
And Bet began to understand when she saw the postman
with the telegram come past the garden gate at ten past eight.
At five past two
the crying through
she went and made some tea.
With the teeth that Ben had sent
she turned the gas on
and bent with grief
she went to sleep.
Forever.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 1:07 AM UTC
'Tis getting late, and I miss you,
I miss you like I used to do
Your cold and clear and fair air;
The winds that followed me everywhere
'Tis not fate, but there was a poem,
I used to read at night in my room
Summer was gone, and I looked at the sky;
You were there to me, to my sight
Coventry, why did you falter me;
Why did you take it all away
You are not here to see me write;
You are not here to comfort my fright
Coventry, why did you love me,
Why did you make me go away
There was more love I wanted to give
There was a life I wanted to live.
Coventry, why did you touch my heart
With such a fatal and hard song;
That I could not take in return
That I had no voice to sing all apart.
Coventry, why did you burn me
And sink my white love back in the sun
And my cold winter, my solid night
My justice, all that had seemed right
Coventry, why did you **** me
Why did you peel my love at once,
And used a sword to seal my words,
To break astray from my whole world.
Coventry, why did you forget me
Why was all to you a lie
And was my love but a faint shadow,
In the white meadow, like one that has no tears
Coventry, why did you drown me,
With a lie that has grown false
Have you forgot the words you perused,
The poems of love, my soul's wisdom.
Coventry, why did you fail me,
Was I but an absurd flute to thee?
A flute that has in its chest no song,
Did I love thee for too long?
Coventry, why did you lie,
And make me look at the murky sky?
That day there was no cloud in sight,
None to be, and none to love again.
Coventry, why did you go,
I am not free, and I cannot be,
There is too much darkness, to be here
Too much that I shall not hear.
Coventry, why did you turn,
There was but none new to burn
And you could have loved me,
I was like a lost bird in the fir tree
Coventry, why did not you forgive,
Had I been mistaken much to live?
Had I been unloved too much,
Had I come from too far away.
Coventry, why was there no reason,
At summer, there was no more season
And why did you bring me back,
Why did you not wait for me.
Coventry, why did you make me cry,
When I had too much love to give,
And all of my heart has rusted away
Just like you want it to have, today.
Coventry, why did you make me sad
And it feels like there is no more to read,
And no more blood in my heartbeat;
All was sorely left in my last poem.
Coventry, why did you alter me,
That I had nowhere else to be
I had no other poetry to love in sight;
In my conscience, at the truest nights.
Coventry, why did you leave me;
Why did you steal my voice today,
You tore my rains and kisses away,
You made me cease to love.
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 9:05 PM UTC
Master bedroom
It would have been nice
If it could live up to its name
Knowingly, the master couldn’t
Even handle his business in any room
Why called it the master bedroom,
The master haven't mastered any role in any room
until his compassionate flower, the ladywith a heart of an angel,
Made a deal for the people, , as history was told
Her love for the oppressed citizens of Coventry would never be forgotten:
A Yellow Lily not to be reckon with:
Lady Godiva the people's choice
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Who would span the linkage of the days, and to what earthly end would the toll of time send me breaking to?
And would the ferryman play sticks and stones with my crumbling body or would he have me throw the bones and tell of fortunes squandered?
I
have nothing left to tell of what bridges I have walked across,what joy and loss I found in mansions and in tenements,now
in Coventry sent there by my family in silent wandering I see the chain stretching out in front of me.
And who would join the dots to make this picture right,to read this epicure I spread upon the leavings of my night?
I write,I write until the brightness of the bursting sun comes round again to burst this bubble and in pain,I shout,I shout or scream and cry and when the sun would die tonight,I write,I write.
He,
inside of me knows well the moments and he counts the minutes,strikes the hours and all that passes in between are him and I,the sun waits patiently for me to cry.
Let the artisan then span the chasm that keeps me from the other side and let the ferryman glide well across the waterway.
Let my day be joined with all the other days,send the breakers in as I go gently out with the ebbing of the tide.
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 6:20 AM UTC
I am heading now into the
somewhere and somehow and
I may be a while.
Call it madness
call it style
call it what you will but
I'm still heading there or
I'm heading there still and
until I am sure of a connection to
the cure,
I remain outward bound.
There is a noise in my ears,
a sound that one fears when
the evening comes in and
the night catches up with the sun.
If the dark was a friend in
the somehow it might end and
the somewhere is where I might
find
peace of mind.
There is a curvature to my spine
due to old age and time.
The darkness will find me on the horizon
of history,
bent over the pages and watching the mystery
of myself.
In the mirror,only me,solitary,
playing chess with the toothpaste and
wasting the light.
I am or I was
because someone once told
a serf or a King and
so I bring to this Coventry where
some reflection has sent me another picture to paste in
the windows that chase across the oceans that roll and toss
and again I am at a loss
to explain
what anything means.
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 5:10 PM UTC
Now or never
whether we want to or not
they've got us by the *****
and though we built walls
to defend against these invaders of free will
we will need to be stronger
build our walls bigger and better than ever before
and let them kick out the windows and doors
we'll just brick them up and no one gets in
and no one gets out
and no one but no one knows what this is all about.
but the walls stay because they want us to rot
they've got us by the ***** and all we can do is build more and more walls
and who wins in the end?
when we're all sent to Coventry with bags of cement so we can lend some authority to the people up there
and they don't give a ****
they jam us into categories with the same krappy old stories
that it's good for our health while they're spending the wealth that they stole from the miners and while they're dining on beef
we're starving
good grief
and they've got us by the *****
in glass coloured test tubes lubricated,dedicated to the rise of the monarchs
and it can't be for real
we'd never allow that
but laying flat on our back and winking eyes at the sun
is where this begun.
In the minds of the merchants and in the pockets of wise men
in the back alleys of bigots and bigshots
and what have we got?
you know it,
A box full of sawdust and a whole heap of ****
so the walls get a little longer
a little stronger
but they'll break us one day
and take us away to a recycle plant
and they'll plant us as seeds to service their needs
and their needs will get greater the later they leave it
there's a whole load of ****
a coming our way.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 10:51 AM UTC
I have had enough of you!
I know I am not alone
There are millions suffering
And someday you’ll atone.
At some point the silence
You enjoy so much will end
And you and your cohorts
Will not have a single friend.
You insist you’re a Christian
Then cheat and lie and steal.
Point to all the good people
And claim their values aren’t real.
You gather with other creeps
And dress up very expensively
Then spend your stolen loot
On lavish living extensively.
Some of you may have made
A study of which things to quote
Of your badly interpreted religion
And memorize them by rote
So you can spew them back
And claim you are a greatly pious
Man or woman of God’s grace.
That’s how you buy some of us.
You pump us full of falsehoods
Blame everyone but yourselves
And demand we go right on
Working as your mindless elves.
Meanwhile you take apart the good
That we have tried to do before.
You lie and claim you are helping us
And too many of us don’t keep score.
That will not go on forever because
Not all of us are raging fools.
We will turn on you and beat you
With all the appropriate tools.
We will cast you out to the coventry
You forced us into all these years.
You'll rage at us with no result.
You will understand living in fear.
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 2:05 PM UTC
Telephones ringing the changes.
Banging hard inside my head.
Who are you bothering me?
Needing peace, please let me be.
Freedom is for dreamers.
Dreaming is for sleeping.
Houses for fashion.
Musing for using.
One night stands.
Final demands.
Bills of rights.
Feisty nights.
Long lost lovers.
Cold to each other.
Holding hands carved of ice.
Coventry won't be so nice.
Know how you're feeling.
Head must be reeling.
Maybe it's numb.
Having a mother, but never a mum.
(c) Livvi
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
Brigid was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice runs still near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
What's known of Nellie's early years?
Da died before she knew grieving tears,
But her eyes will burn in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her visage blurred,
Her eyes look distant,
Yet recognizable
In an instant.
She attended school for six short years,
The three R's, some Irish,
With a Doctorate in tears.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God, Grace and sin.
(There were no vows for Nellie then.)
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie
To relieve their worry.
War flared up, and men were few,
A Coventry move would surely do.
(and thistles bloomed as they grew.)
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin were carried.
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
To work the flax mill again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself a generator.
And powered the lights and the wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Father's angel.
(Is this what turns
A father strange?)
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no family borders
For brothers and sisters, sons or daughters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland in familiar songs.
Daddy waited for our family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
But Jimmy and Marlene left us too.
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came for Little Granny,
Brigid, Nellie, her names are many.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I may invoke her one true name:
"Mammy."
May 10, 2025
May 10, 2025 at 9:55 AM UTC
You don't have to put up with it,
no one is stuck on Facebook.
I look but can't see
the
delete me the **** outa this app that's free and always will be
krap.
Zap,
Zuckerberg just shot me down, run me out of Facebook town.
Pow,
I was going anyhow, they're just a bunch of nothing new,
a new look on a pirate crew,
**** you
facebook.
Then they suspend me, them
wicked ******** on Facebook send me
to that godforsaken place called Coventry where the end of me is processed and repackaged endlessly,
Coventry?
I think it's twinned with monotony and
**** you facebook
I'll go-commando,
hide away in Twitterville
and go it solo with 139 other characters who know as
much as I know.
Which is next to nothing
Am I bad or what?
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 2:38 AM UTC
Roger of Wendover
wrote of your audacity,
a chronicle, a fable in lore,
whereupon your face was softened
for the Coventry poor.
Tyranny of taxation,
a sovereign's oppression,
one husband's aggravation,
and so he gave to you
but one condition.
After the butterflies,
before the sunlit emprise,
no mask to disguise,
not a thing to prevent
prying eyes.
Only your decree
could now protect your
ladyship's modesty,
keep your name from
this sordid tale of infamy,
yet, what did Tom see?
It shan't be denied, it rests
indelibly in Flowers of History,
alas! along cobbled streets,
all of them you defied,
thus with head held high,
you rode in all your glory.
Dec 9, 2019
Dec 9, 2019 at 11:21 PM UTC
I could not find love inside thee;
I could not seek, I could not live.
I did not have the strength to leave;
that when I went, a wound broke me.
I could not bear light upon thee;
You went straight, far away from me.
I could not get inside of you;
to make you see how I was true.
Goodbye to thee now, at last
Your sun and fire have burned to dust,
You have dispersed into thin air,
Unheard, unseen, untouched, unfair.
Goodbye to thee, while time is hard
Your days were left in the dim past,
When I wake again, you must leave
I have enough reasons to live.
Goodbye to thee, and forever
Though it still feels like yesterday
When Coventry, from my chamber
Frosted white on scarred wintry days.
Goodbye to thee, that it is now
I have forgot your song somehow
Fed and left to my tomorrow;
and such a light day has not grown.
Goodbye to thee, and written pain
Through all such grief and annoyed rain
Through all suspecting space and colds
By the toxic wounds my heart holds.
Goodbye to thee, and the white lies
You have attached to all the skies
Might never rest in peaceful sleep;
Their thinned sockets shall always weep.
Goodbye to thee, to white lilies
Grown dusks on York’s rivers and seas
Retreating to my Northern star;
Whilst distant, nights dwell not far.
Goodbye to thee, to scarcity
Lives lacking roses and kindness,
Love of bleakness and enmity
Hearts of unborn happiness.
Goodbye to thee, the whole of you;
To arise, and embark myself anew
To the land of a thousand lakes--
A love story our hearts shall take.
Aug 8, 2017
Aug 8, 2017 at 1:26 PM UTC