From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

Free is one of the words to use if you want to stop people in their tracks. It’s attention-grabbing. Who wouldn’t want something for "FREE"? Especially when money is so short & tight.

I remember reading somewhere that there were 5 or 7 words you should use to capture an audience. FREE is the one I remember. As a commercial writer, I need to know the tricks.  I can’t afford to be out-flanked by the competition.  If Free makes me sharp, I better use it.

Why highlight Free now?  
It was Third Tribe what done it.  I heard Chris Brogan and his mates had set up a Tribe and you had to pay to join. That turned me on.  Any group that includes Chris has me eavesdropping, hoping I’ll hear something to challenge and develop me.  I’d say the same about Seth Godin [who’s coming to Brussels soon].

Here in Ireland… 
we don’t get to meet these thinkheads over coffee.  I use Twitter to listen to a gang of people I’ve come to respect and admire.  But don’t we live in a FREE world, where ideas are being freely distributed over the internet?  Isn’t it time to walk the talk and give everything away for free?

At about the same time as I was so brooding, my friend Roger Overall, fabulous photographer with a documentary approach, was bothered by a like issue.  He was being asked to give away photographs to members of BNI at a business networking event in Cork.  Roger was grumpy and said so.  He didn’t see why he should give people his work for nothing.  He blogged about it.

I have first-hand experience of what it’s like to get something for free.  
For a long time I’ve had vulnerable mental health.  Ages ago I had psychoanalysis, five days a week for five years. At the British Institute of Psychoanalysis, I got free psychoanalysis for a while.  I had little money and much distress.  I got funding which paid for me to start an analysis. I could write a book about what it was like to meet my psychoanalysist each weekday, before or after work.  The experience was multi-layered, but I want to focus on what it was like to get the service for FREE.

You all know psychoanalysis is a premium service.  
It did me no good to get it without having to pay for it. It took me a long time to realise that. It meant I didn’t have sufficient respect for the commitment I was making to myself, my wellbeing and the wellbeing of others with whom I had relationships.  I sort of took it forgranted.  Of course, I didn’t see this at the beginning.  My eyes were on other aspects of the analysis.  The funding ran out. My analyst began to charge me.  She ratcheted up the fees, until I had to pay a fee that hurt sufficiently to  make me feel I was really investing in something vital.  I found out a lot about the value of a price that’s pitched just right. It’s that experience of moving from FREE to paying the fee that floods back to me this week.

These days I want to pay.  
I don’t want anything for nothing. Third Tribe will be a better place for me now that I have to go out to work to afford it. Every client that pays me will be paying Third Tribe.  There will be a joined-up paying experience.

Roger Overall has figured it out for himself.  
He’s clear that he won’t give away his work for nothing to business people who simply say "give us a photograph".  I was corrupted by my taking the services of my analyst without experiencing what it was like to pay my way.  What I learned back then has stood me in good stead.

I love Free.  It’s like fresh air.  But do I respect it?  
Does Free not collude with my weak side?  I think so.  Better to pay a fair price for the special value I’m after. 

CANTO X  (continues here)

Cross the Rubicon.
Drive yourself into the territory of the start-ups,
entrepreneurs, whizzkids, Enterprise Ireland.
Push yourself forward over the narrow
boundary between invention and madness,
between the touched, daoine le Dia,

[remember John Mills looking out on the Blasket
cases from Slea Head -
he was the centre of the community,
he had enough disabilities to qualify
for, not only the sympathy vote but,
the ancient position of the film]

and the incubated genii,
fireflies and mosquitos,
grasshoppers, crickets and daddylonglegs.
We have ways of describing our Micros
so they’re not confused with our Nanos.
But it was here Nintendo was conceived,
a garage industry,
no longer slim enough for the risk-taking youngster
obsessed with world revolution. 

"Mercury, my middle name young man,
one of those ALMIGHTY
you’ve grown to disrespect.
The pendulum swings,
your parents’ parents feared me.
I am the terrifying Promiser of Salvation.
Oh yes, it was ‘Believe in Me,
or I’ll Purgatory you,
even Hell you.’
And, if you’re stupid enough to go
and die before we can Christen you, 
we’ll Limbo you.
Those were the days my friend.
Your genes thought they’d never end,
never would the Last Supper 
result in anything but Judas exposed.

The Last Judgement, fresh as the First
delivered by an AM WHO AM

- Ad Majoram Dei Gloria -

you might well laugh.
I suppose you’re right:
Wotan was greedy for gold,
not because he wanted trinkets,
or glitter from the riverbed,
Wotan spoke ALMIGHTY.
a palace, a branded Heaven,
a residence fit for the Promise of the Gods.
Poorman.  You lose a leader,
an icon for your tribe.
You lost your faith
and start again on the Genisis Enterprise Programme,
rungs of the ladder.

I see Dr Jimmy Devins, Minister for Science,
Technology and Innovation, 
is a live-wire sponsor
of the innovated graceless, raw,
transportable, talent
needed though not heeded.
Man cannot live by Latte alone,
but by every word the CROWD
decree to be reliable,
viable, and fucking viral.
You may be fooled yet.
New enterprise in Ireland
is built on the back of cute hewers of wood,
grafted from stock sliced from the Tree of Eternal Life,
grown in a Donegal garden centre,
back in O’Donnell’s days.

St Patrick was an O’Donnell,
caught up with an O’Neill,
before the clans were born.
Patrick deStaic would  tell you the story,
but he’s otherwise engaged on his novel.
You take my word for it.
Patrick was an agent of the devil
sent to take back his emissary snakes,
after the work of inhabiting the wombs of Ireland
was sufficiently done to ensure
it wouldn’t be an easy task
to uncover one honest soul 
on this godforsaken lake of tears.
Watch An Bheal Bhocht.
Be Warned. "

He flashed, simply disappeared,
globalised into etheric dust.
Left the Rubicon
to the afterglow of Hannibal’s elephants.
There may be more trunks in Ireland
than anyone suspected. 

(end of Canto 10) 

CANTO IX  (continued)

Do you need me any longer?
Do you want me on the floor?
There’s a tidal wave of dolphins
two miles outside the door.
I saw a hundred thousand starlings
wheel across the sky…

At this point in the proceedings
the pen began to leak,
the body stopped…

The NIGHTWATCHMAN rose from the grave
that was open,
pushed away the boards,
walked past the O’Briens, Morans,
O’Mahonys,
spat respectfully on one or two headstones
that reminded him of the road
from Lahinch to Liscannor,
as if saying ‘you can be off now, lads,
I’ll do the rest,
I’ll be here for the duration‘. 

(end of Canto 9) 

CANTO X  (begins here)

The ELEPHANT forgot -
he couldn’t remember his own name.
Only his presence was embedded on his psyche.
he’d have lost himself,
like a whale that travels the sea,
enthrawling the plankton.
Like a hippo submerged in squelchyst mud,
our mammal was made in our likeness.

I am who am the GREAT ONE of EARTH,
not be be confused with the ALMIGHTY.
The role profile short:
get the characters to work,
show them the way,
the Tao of the Trunk.
Go back five thousand years, if you like,
but be here,
Now.

The name of the ELEPHANT didn’t forget,
it was named after the magnificent moment
on page one of Genesis.
Like the anti-Guru, the anti-name,
the anti-ELEPHANT
is an antedote to blurr.
Stay focussed on day nine.
It took but six days for the ALMIGHTY
to be ready for rest.
Puffed out.

We earthlings can’t afford the luxury
of living inside our pens.
I drive you on from the front
like any good leader.
I bring you on from your belly button,
midway down your flame,
like Napoleon sleeping with his troups
on the road to Moscow.
I push you on from the back,
like the leader hewn from plantinum,
who’d rather die than lose one of the convoy.
I am the ELEPHANT
who’s as much an infant as you.

We are past Basecamp.
We are ‘Breaking from the Pack",
and pushing on because
Because … why are we climbing
this Amazon of a mountain?

"Because it’s simply there.
Here to be climbed before
the ice of December forms,
and we are locked in with Shackleton’s ship
and crushed like twigs."

(to be continued) 

CANTO IX (continues)

By the ashing embers,
the bit of unburned briquette,
the heat of evening glows.
Coal bucket brass.
"The Gardener’s Year" overdue at the Library.
Firelighter,
a single bottle of Marques de Caceres from Rioja,
Poker up the arse,
clay pots from White Horse,
bought from the hands in the Old School House.
Wiltshire Downs under Salisbury Plain 
meets the silence of house,
Emily Dickinson’s ghost
shadowing the author who’s lost Mont Blanc
and doesn’t know where to find him.

Outside, the forces of darkness draw breath,
shoot moons from the sky over Glanmire.
The gangsters long for sleep
so badly, they snort white powder
to dream like lawyers.

Off Washington Street,
they sense the enemy approach,
release the pit bull within,
and dull the shine
in a wine glass they haven’t washed.
The old queens hold hands,
under the rug of anonymity,
wondering if they’ve passed the age of consent.

We are on the Bayeau Tapestry,
a feudal landscape
on a tidal set of deeds
half of them weren’t entitled to.
One War Lord,
only one High King,
drooping eye-lids, yawned to bits.
Why don’t you question?
Why don’t you whisper?

(to be continued) 

CANTO IX  (starts here)

Light of day
Help me pray
Wipe the strain
Erase my pain
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

Child of Grace
Save my face
Let me walk
Through all talk
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

Sacrifice
Break the ice 
Soul return
Tears to burn
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

Children lie
Adults sigh
Community
Security
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

The priest takes the cruet from the altar boy,
pours wine over the rim of the chalice.
It trickles down the gold,
adds a smidgen of Holy Water,
ripples on the surface,
dribbles on the lip.
A single droplet falls to earth,
the boy in the soutane withdraws,
leaves the priest to swirl
the liquid he’ll drink
once the bread is transubstantiated.
This is the miracle-maker at work,
the community leader in his professional capacity. 

Congregation prays
knees take the weight of the wait
Judgement Day brimstone.

At least I’ve been to confession,
made my peace with my ALMIGHTY,
cleaned my soul,
undone the harm waiting me
if it should come to pass
that the Hair of Damocles snap.
At least I can stand for the Our Father,
ask for my daily bread
like the other buggers.
Forgive us our sinners,
I never belonged to the Shinners.

"Et ne nos inducas in tentationem",
said the lying bastard from Mallow.

How’ll I deal with the  manager of my bank? 

She’s a fierce good-looking woman that nun.
Without her habit, she’d be a stunner.
Underneath that pale restraint
beats a heart of untold desire,
fires my loins.
If it wasn’t for the GAA,
I’d have raped the lot of them.

You see that fecker in the dark suit,
brown shoes and stripy socks?
You know who he is?
"Aye, one of the O’Callaghans
from the O’Callaghan’s Strand,
the same one who built the Parkway,
when the Shopping Centre
was anything but a centre."

He’s a Liquorice Allsorts fellow,
he’s been to Bancock,
he’s some fuckin sinner.
If he’s up for absolution,
I’ll have some of what she’s eating,
Sleepless in Bunratty
where Sally met Harry Hughes
on the booze
off a flight to Shannon,
some stop off… 

(to be continued) 

CANTO VIII (continued)

The procession of the Chieftains
measures the cold of flagstones,
sliced from Liscannor
before the Protestants came.

Through the fog of incense
rose the chant of sinners.
Down from the Mount of Fianna Fail
strode the five hundred

candidates for the honour of redemption
in the Oireachtas.  Bertie Ahern,
christened in St Eamon’s parish
Patrick Bartholomew Drumcondra

Dig-out O’hEachthain,
Son of Con, begot of Julia Hourihane,
Ballyfeard genes from the Battle of Kinsale,
he holds the key of a Vincentian

Ghost who left the priesthood
before he could transubstantiate,
locked fingertips with a particular Reynolds
in front of the lesser nobles.

Dev would have been here,
Lemass wouldn’t have missed it,
Lynch never lost an opportunity
for a smoke.

Sean T O’Kelly, Childers, Hillery 
McAleese, all there in spirit.
The Judas Haughey, sackclothed,
teeth scrubbed with ashes,

he is gone to his island,
repentant, resplendent in sin,
bare-soled on granite shards
around the holy-of-holies 

on Lough Derg,
his other islands abandoned -
the one absolutely dishonest man
is doing his Purgatory on earth

among the memories of tribespeople
who voted for his style,
so he’ll not walk this church
until purged.

It’s said he’ll suffer silence
until NAMA has come and gone
and the pestilences are passed,
lanced, festered, and turned to leprosy. 

C J Hee Haw, Lord HawHaw,
Ard Ri that was,
is still confessing
as the Charlie is benedicted,

the monstrance set aside,
a ciborium uber alles,
and the Gospel is read,
without credibility,

because there is no good news
in all these fields
since Flight of the Earls of Power:
Carroll, Cleary, Doyle and Hegarty

O’Callaghan, O’Flynn, Murtagh
and their Generals,
all vanquished gone,
returned to spend more time

with their family,
leaving their faithful
wrapt roofless
in negative equity.

(end of Canto  

If I don’t share my report on the NSUE launch (by Minister for Mental Health John Moloney) on Monday, I might get distracted. I better crack on with telling you what happened…

Of course, hardly anyone knows what NSUE is. It’s an organisation that’s meant to give voice to Irish users of mental health services.  There is an international movement of users.  It’s growing more powerful.  Ireland is catching up with Scotland, for example, and parts of America. NSUE stands for National Service Users Executive. Isn’t that a catchy name! Rolls off the tongue eh.  But at least it sounds serious.

NSUE represents me.  
I’m a big user of the Irish mental health services.  I go to my doctor (GP) when I’ve worried I might be getting anxiety or depression.  I’m entitled to be a member of NSUE.  I voted in the elections NSUE held in the south of RoI.  If you think you might ever need to go to your doctor with anxiety or depression or any sort of mental stress, you’re entitled to join NSUE, and vote for people to represent you on the Executive of NSUE.  It’s important to say NSUE is not a new idea.  It was proposed years ago by the government-backed "A Vision for Change" group.  The "Vision" report said an organisation to represent users should be set up.  It’s been slow, hard work but NSUE is  getting there. There will be elections in the West soon.  There will be two elections in the East of Ireland after that: that includes Dublin. NSUE has two employees - all the rest are volunteers. The good news is that NSUE is getting itself into the conversations among policy makers.  The people who are making mental health service policy and performance review now have NSUE people involved.  The Users’ Movement will grow and grow…

Why say all this?
Since most people reading this won’t know about NSUE  I felt I had to  put Monday’s launch of a Survey of Users’ Views on Irish Mental Health in context.  At the same time, NSUE launched its Strategic Plan for 2010-2012.

Report on the day:

I went by train from Cork to Dublin. Met John Kidney and Declan Gould at we got off at Heuston Station. We were the Cork gang heading for Buswell’s Hotel across the road from the Irish Parliament, the Dail - a hotel used to holding famous press conferences.

I met all sorts of interesting and interested people. Jenny Kelly, chair of NSUE, arrived with a heavy bag of reports.  John Redican, chief executive (or whatever his job title is) was in splendid coat & hat. Liz Donovan, development officer of NSUE, asked me to take a few background photographs. There was a professional press photographer from Irish Independent. There was a TV crew. Tim O’Malley was there and I met him for the first time. Martin Rogan, the new mental health supremo for HSE (my phrase) spoke, and gave me his email and phone number. Jim Walsh from DCU (which has a great mental health change course) gave me his email.  Alan Malone (Clonmel), who was a candidate in the NSUE elections, Collette Dalgarno (who was elected) gave me her email. Charlotte Frorath (who works as treasurer for NSUE), Ted O’Shea from Killarney (already elected to NSUE exec)… and Marcus Hanratty, who chairs the consumer council at St Patrick’s Mental Hospital, spoke strongly from the floor of the meeting.

I put these few names down here so that I’ll be able to look back and remind myself what it was like. I’ll add some photographs, and in another post I’ll offer my analysis of what went on at the meeting.  I met the Minister.  I recorded all he said off the cuff on my iPhone and I hope to transcribe that too.

But now I have to rush off to a meeting and deal with other matters, like earning my living. 

CANTO VIII  (begins here)

Gay Byrne’s buried here.
For years, he sat where you’re sitting now,
till road rage got him.
When you’re on television like Gaybo,
do you think of the same things?
How long the Nun’s habit?
The cost of a burning bra?
The cost of a genuine smile?

48 degrees longitude, 30 degrees latitude,
as an Irish treasure island
wakes to the realisation that this is 
an immaculate country,
where the Garda count 50,000,
and Organised Labour makes it 150.
There’s a national dispute over time.
One side wants debt for four years,
the other between more and infinity.
We’re used to the clash of the ash
in our back garden.

"Bridging measures on their way,
Social Partnership’s had its day.
Croake Park Box is up for sale,
‘Budget’s fair’ cries out e-mail.

24/7 is on the march,
Dublin Diocese ever so Arch.
Chirac’s memoirs in the wings,
Tysan Property no longer sings.

The Arts gather in Parnell Square,
a Manifesto written there.
In the bloody red of Liverpool,
Benitez appeals against the fool.
No country for young men,
Emigrate - the question when?"

This ends our review of the daily papers,
in stunted metre, conventional couplets.
Fourteen lines don’t make a sonnet ring.
Gold in the mountain’s, Armagh’s died.
Cashel too, Clonmacnoise, Louis McNeece,
The Book of Lists.
Weekend is the time for sanctity,
going to Mass, dusting off the missal,
join the community in psalm.
I remember community, ELEPHANT,
Guru of Gurus, Our Father,
‘Introibo ad altare Dei
A Deum qui laetificat
Juventutem meam.’
Perchance there is one honest man at Church,
let’s search the pews.
Go out into the highways and byways,
find those who loiter by the back door,
modesty of men who know they’re unwashed,
excluded from the feast,
incapable of drinking the water
- lest it turn to wine -
and lead them into temptation,
and a failed breathalyser.
Come past those bent on another prayer.
One who fills his obligation, 
by hanging out under the eaves
on eve of Sabbath,
is unlikely to join the host
willingly.
Would an honest man hold back
when invited to eternal life?
Or would he hold the door
until all the just were through to the other side?

Namesta, how’s your Da?
You brought me keys of the Kingdom,
and I thought you were only supporting Kerry.
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God of Toasts,
raise your glass and be upstanding,
the Chief is on his way…

(to be continued) 

CANTO VII  (continued)

Clearing his trunk, the ELEPHANT remembered
he’d be paid nothing
if he missed his entrance.
Most had forgotten the guide was round
the corner, shrouded in concrete images.

Is the Mahabharata where you find
Ganesh strumming a lyre?
Those are lazy whisperers,
eyes off the ball,
letting the free verse flourish without structure.
Riding the ELEPHANT in Dublin Zoo
is the great Eddie Hobbs,
champion of jet black lacquered hair stylists.
"I am the man
with a long trunk and fierce mouth,
and amused accent that delights
the boys from Ballyfermot,
the girls from Ringsend."

The ELEPHANT nudges Hobbs forward
through his enthusiasm.

"Here, I give you a cypher, a Delphic face.
Out through the orifices come sound bites,
megabites, nanobites."
If Lenihan came to him under the cover of darkness
and sat in kitchen, chewing garlic,
complaining that officials in his Department
smelt of Cologne,
Eddie would have sewn those lips.
"Our great natural resource is wind",
says one soldier.

The ELEPHANT blows his balloon,
swats another flea and wonders
whether he’s too heavy for this poem,
or would have been safer
inside a shit load of sonnets. 

(end of CANTO 7) 

These are photographs I got from Wikipedia.  I show them under creative commons licence, which means that I can publish them free - provided I tell you they can only be published under the terms of that licence. 

I have work to do today.  It’s Depression work. I find the more I work on depression the more I build up my resources for staying well.

Why would I focus on depression while I’m well?  
Wouldn’t I be better to put it out of my mind, hope it’ll never come back to zap me? "Out of sight, out of mind"?  Isn’t it risky to allow my mind to fill up with thoughts of depression? Isn’t that too much of a risk that my depression will come crowding back? Wouldn’t it be safer to simply focus on other things?

Another way of looking:
This stream of questions came back to me recently. A very kind man challenged me on Twitter. He asked my why I write about depression?  He suggested the thought that I might be better off getting on with life, putting my past experience of depression behind me. My first reaction was to say to myself:

"codswallop - the best thing I do to stay well is focus on my experience of depression."  "I’ve found that talking to others about depression strengthens me: it makes it all less scary. I refuse to hide from depression.  I want to look the bastard in the eye and wish it bon voyage…"  

Using the memory:
My first reaction was a retort. Then I remembered I didn’t always think and feel like this. When I first recovered from a bout of severe depression (that lasted about 10 months), I felt great. I wanted to forget about the past, get on with being alive again. The last thing I wanted to do was reflect on the "black dog" days. "Onwards and upwards" for me.  But my depression returned.  I had another bout. Again, I celebrated the lifting of the depression by banishing it from my mind. Again, it returned.  I’ve had about 8 bouts of severe depression (lasting from one year to four months) since 1992. I realised I was vulnerable to depression.

Depression is like breaking a leg…
If you broke the same leg eight times, you’d live your life in constant communication with your vulnerability to a broken leg. If you tried to put it out of your mind, everyone would think you stupid. You’d alter your lifestyle.  You’d take special care.  You’d read and talk to others about how best to live, so as not to break that leg again.  You’d become "the broken leg expert".  Eventually you might even think it wasn’t the end of the world to have a broken leg, so long as it mended. If the broken leg didn’t kill you, it may make you stronger in other ways.

In future…
So why not treat vulnerability to depression in the same sensible way? 

I am up maddeningly early.  My child came into the bedroom, whispered in her mother’s ear.  I woke. I’m not used to waking during the night.  I thought I’d do the good deed and take Grace back to her own room.

She took some persuading.  She cried a bit.  She wanted a story.  I said I’d stay with her until she went back to sleep.  I got uncomfortable kneeling on the floor.  Covered her up and slipped back to my own bed where I lay awake, and awake and awake.

Tried breathing, focussed on the breath in through the nose, out through the mouth.  In through the mouth, out through the lips. Tried to imagine an empty mind. Tried running with the thoughts, following their trail.  I just got more and more awake and grumpy.  I started blaming Grace.  It was her fault.

Then I blamed her parents who hadn’t bribed her enough to stay in her own bed. What good are parents if they can’t keep their children asleep during the night?  I got right grumpy.

Eventually, I got to myself… my thoughts that were racing.  They were all about BNI.  What’s BNI? That’s the point: I kept thinking up things that BNI could stand for

BLOODY NIGHTTIME INVADERS

BASTARDS NEAR IRELAND

BEAUTIFUL NEIGHBOURS INSPIRE

It was me that kept me awake.  My mind, my body, my unconscious leaking into consciousness.

So I got up and wrote in the Intimate Journal, the Moleskine  Eventually this little poem came along…

I can’t sleep
I can’t turn over
I simply can’t fall
back into dark.

My mind is bright
the body tired
the memory alive
a clock ticking.

A child woke
came to my room
whispered the sound
aroused my ear.
I listened to her
till she went quiet
stayed by her side
slipped back to my bed.

I can’t sleep
my rest undone
the words revolve
the issues awake.

Why didn’t I lock her in?
Why didn’t I give her drugs?
Why did I take her hand?
Why does she deserve the peace?

It’s first draft.  Difficult poem to end.  "Drugs" jars.  Just when the poem is coming to a end, "drugs" is like a stone in a stilling pond.  I’ll have to work on the ending.  I could do with an editor.  After all TS Eliot had Ezra Pound… for The Waste Land

I am up maddeningly early.  My child came into the bedroom, whispered in her mother’s ear.  I woke. I’m not used to waking during the night.  I thought I’d do the good deed and take Grace back to her own room.

She took some persuading.  She cried a bit.  She wanted a story.  I said I’d stay with her until she went back to sleep.  I got uncomfortable kneeling on the floor.  Covered her up and slipped back to my own bed where I lay awake, and awake and awake.

Tried breathing, focussed on the breath in through the nose, out through the mouth.  In through the mouth, out through the lips. Tried to imagine an empty mind. Tried running with the thoughts, following their trail.  I just got more and more awake and grumpy.  I started blaming Grace.  It was her fault.

Then I blamed her parents who hadn’t bribed her enough to stay in her own bed. What good are parents if they can’t keep their children asleep during the night?  I got right grumpy.

Eventually, I got to myself… my thoughts that were racing.  They were all about BNI.  What’s BNI? That’s the point: I kept thinking up things that BNI could stand for

BLOODY NIGHTTIME INVADERS

BASTARDS NEAR IRELAND

BEAUTIFUL NEIGHBOURS INSPIRE

It was me that kept me awake.  My mind, my body, my unconscious leaking into consciousness.

So I got up and wrote in the Intimate Journal, the Moleskine  Eventually this little poem came along…

I can’t sleep
I can’t turn over
I simply can’t fall
back into dark.

My mind is bright
the body tired
the memory alive
a clock ticking.

A child woke
came to my room
whispered the sound
aroused my ear.
I listened to her
till she went quiet
stayed by her side
slipped back to my bed.

I can’t sleep
my rest undone
the words revolve
the issues awake.

Why didn’t I lock her in?
Why didn’t I give her drugs?
Why did I take her hand?
Why does she deserve the peace?

It’s first draft.  Difficult poem to end.  "Drugs" jars.  Just when the poem is coming to a end, "drugs" is like a stone in a stilling pond.  I’ll have to work on the ending.  I could do with an editor.  After all TS Eliot had Ezra Pound… for The Waste Land

None of us live in a vacuum.  No one is alone.  We are creatures of company.  Even when we feel dreadful and completely alone, cut off, alienated and deserted - you are never in a vacuum.  You are who you are in context…

The context I live in today, in Cork, Ireland, Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Globe, Universe - this context sets a platform from which I can make my own meaning.  My own personal snowflake personality.  My character which is deeply "embedded" in my society.

So I feel I must comment on the Irish government we have.  It is useless.  Clever, devious, intelligent sure.  But corrupted by its own will to power.  I live in its mess.  I can’t escape from it.  I have to carve out my little patch in dialogue with the government.  I can’t avoid what the government is doing  - even if I wanted to.  I am condemned to struggle with the context it represents.

At least everything is more transparent these days.  It’s so much easier to see through the tactics and stratagems of the government.  They are made naked by mass education.  Nude by the internet and the power of communication between citizens.  Even those who leave school unable to read and write well, even those marginalised by the education system’s inability to counteract the influence of family and wider community, every single person can think for themselves and see through this disasterous government.  The voiceless can think and feel.

We know what we’re dealing with.

There is hope for us. 

Twas a strange day.  A one-off.  And this is the aftermath.  The night reflection…

Maybe it was special because today I began to think air traffic controller should not be allowed to go on strike.  All my life I’ve thought it best to allow everyone to stop work - as if that would provide the best set of civil liberties for us all to co-exist.

Maybe it was special because I forgot to take Grace to her first Irish dancing class in the local GAA Hurling clubhouse.  I lost track of what day it was.  So far she goes to ballet lesson on Saturday mornings.  It was a big step to do the Irish as well.

Maybe it was special because people were very kind and pleasant to me today.  Every single person I met was agreeable.  Anthony Creswell kick-started the trend by appreciating my work for his smokery, Ummera and his cousin’s smokery, Uig Lodge.  Lucy O’Donoghue at Cork Chamber, Paul Brugger in Barry’s Public House in Douglas, Gillian O’Sullivan, the personal trainer,  staff in Hayfield Manor Hotel - they were all so good to be with on Wednesday 20 January.

Maybe it was special because today I showed Garry the proofs of the Uncle Eadbhard calendar we’ve worked on together.  In the HI B pub, it was lovely to see him pleased with his own work.  And then he pointed out a man who sings with the City of Cork Male Voice Choir.  That led to a chat about Swansea and Cork being twinned…

It’s been a whole stream of lovely encounters.  I must have done something good in a previous life. 

CANTO VII  (begins here)

In the English Market, vegetables were quiet.
Tripe and drisheen, humous, Ardrahan,
like Nutcracker toys they dance the dance,
when the river sings.
The steak O’Mahony hangs
for as long as it takes to acquire
menstral flavour.
Ghosts of chickens slit into the fountain,
re-united with Black and Tan smoke.
The Market is stalked by Anne Summers.
She hangs around the gate,
stretched in bondage
hoping the beggars will move on
with their over-dressed bodies -
porn-mongers the lot of them.
Not just "if the little circle is over the other little circle,
we call that an eight"
 - numerically challenged people
who struggle with the cost of kilos,
the price of pounds.
This is a market place,
where everyone trades time, credit,
profit and loss.
It’s all stash flow.
Borrow until you drop,
pick yourself up
and point the finger.
Better have mug of tea,
bags of leaf-shreds all dusty.
Caterpillar’s been. 

On the road from Glanmire to Adare,
you pass Newtwopothouse.
Drive your herd along the main street.
Buttevant of the road works,
a mile outside the town,
just when you consider it safe to breathe
a sigh of relief towards the approaching Limerick border,
lives a pig, a few heffers, a clutch of Rhode Island Reds,
and an old woman in a teepee.
She counts the stars by day,
the moons by night.
In simpler words, she’s round the twist,
but used to be lover to an honest man
before he died.
I think his name was something like "Is Mise Lemass".
It’s still the place to go for leads.

There’s nothing more beautiful than crawling
through undergrowth,
hoping to catch a glimpse
or overhear her talking in her sleep.
It’s said she knew DeVelera’s  middle name,
and got confused with the Wilde man…

(to be continued)