I wake and the light of this fine day edges round the curtain.
The birds have chorused and my left foot lies cold outside the sheets.
Standing in my nightgown I draw the curtains and look out at my garden.

Let me pad downstairs, open the front door and walk brief steps
to the arbour of ferns and shells. From a cane chair
I shall view my private corner with its tiny pool and privet hedge:

whilst there is still a little dew; whilst the cobwebs still glisten;
whilst there is no wind, just a grumble of the surf at Porth Neigwl,
the sound my father makes dozing over his paper.

Miniature, enclosed, protected I will place my thoughts
in this dolls’ house garden, amongst the dank, dark shadows
of its many rooms, its parterred spaces.

You don’t walk in this garden; you take a step . . .
and you are elsewhere. Take three steps and you are quite lost.

I hear the kitchen door bang in the manor house,
Meriel is taking breakfast to my sisters.
I think I shall stay here a moment longer.

Vale Decem,
Honore res quara,
Emerio,
Alter altera,
Vale Decem,
Emerio,
Alter....
Alteri...te....
Vale Decem,
Vale Stragem,
Valde Temptua,
De glorio....
Vale Decem,
Vale Decet,
Honora res quara,
Alter cerna...
...Armis,
Grata tunc, usquera, emani,
Vale....(x12)


The translation from Latin....


Farewell Ten,
Because of your honour,
It's well deserved,
This other one,
Farewell Ten,
It's well deserved,
This other one,
This other one of you,
Farewell Ten,
Farewell Carnage,
Intense trials,
Concerning pride,
Farewell Ten,
In a very proper way,
Because of your honour,
The next seperation....
....Is by force of arms,
Flow out all the way with joy,
Farewell (x12)

II

Donna leggiadra il cui bel nome honora
L’herbosa val di Rheno, e il nobil varco,
Ben e colui d’ogni valore scarco
Qual tuo spirto gentil non innamora,
Che dolcemente mostra si di fuora
De suoi atti soavi giamai parco,
E i don’, che son d’amor saette ed arco,
La onde l’ alta tua virtu s’infiora.
Quando tu vaga parli, O lieta canti
Che mover possa duro alpestre legno,
Guardi ciascun a gli occhi ed a gli orecchi
L’entrata, chi di te si truova indegno;
Gratia sola di su gli vaglia, inanti
Che’l disio amoroso al cuor s’invecchi.

ESSE QUAM VIDERI
(to be rather than  to seem to be)  

"What must it be to be someone else?"
- Gerard Manley Hopkins



( In honour of Honora O' Sullivan becoming a great grandmother yet again)






there I am
all 2lbs of me
and nameless as yet

and so for all
these 67 years
it's a Dónall I've been

haven't been
anything else
all my life

but now
with Storm Ciarán
roaring in

I remember me Mam
telling me that I was
due to be a Ciarán

because of my hair
black as anything
and sideburns to boot

I was obviously
doing my best
Elvis impersonation

and this was
after all
1956

she said I was
her own
'little dark-haired one'

and would I have been
a different man
I sometimes wonder

would the name
change the who
I would have become

I often think
of this
alternative self

wonder how
he got on
in a parallel universe

but a Dónall
I was
and have remained

so I guess  I will
just have to learn
to live with my self

and  Dónall of course
transforms into the Irish
"World Mighty...Spear Power!"

a hard name to be sure
to have to live up to
but I'll give it a good go




Ciarán (is a traditionally male given name of Irish origin. It means "little dark one" or "little dark-haired one", produced by appending a diminutive suffix to ciar ("black", "dark"). It is the masculine version of the name Ciara.

But sure as Oscar once told me: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken. In order to be oneself, one has to take risks, to accept that one is not perfect and to be courageous enough to say what one really thinks”
And says I to the Wilde man: "Sure, I will surely...so I will!"

And so it is I have become the man you see before you...as  Dónall as anything!