From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

CANTO XXXII (continues here) 

The bishop from Donegal looked at the map,
traced the journeys, followed the vectors,
counted the donations that trickled in
for the recently released priest.

"My parishioners have an endless capacity for forgiveness,
there is none so loved as the sinner returned to the fold.
Didn’t Christ do time for humanity?
A priest that has raped a child, and moved on,
may be a better minister.
This valley of sin is much misunderstood,
you don’t need to be in Opus Dei to learn that.
I know my soul will be clean when I face my Maker,
isn’t the Bishop of Rome one of us?
Didn’t he sin in his youth?
Wasn’t he misunderstood too?
And look at him today."

Meanwhile, the rainwater trickled down the neck of a banker,
his house leaked,
reputation creaked,
the Sunday Independent fit for the fire,
his boiled egg hard,
neglected,
his wife and family out praying
as he cursed the news
that his Caribbean haven was exposed
- even the toast was burnt.
Shit flew in formation,
the new boss of Allied Irish was one of the old guard. 

It is a bloody Foreigner
And he is stopping one of three
"By your stubbly beard and critical eye
Now why fore stopp’s you me?"
The Taoiseach’s doors are opened wide
And I am close to him
The party’s grand, the feast is set
Let’s hear the merry din."

He grips him with his bony hand 
"There was a SNIP" cried he
"Be off? Release me, greybeard fool"
Garsoons his hand dropt he.

Oh he is motoring now,
a verse at last.
I hope we’ll get the whole albatross
with the focus on flight,
and not some of that old cliché shyte
about water looking for a mouth.
We had quite enough flooding for my taste.
I see the crowd in the Pale
are under the cosh now,
their Anna Livia flowing over.
Someone told me, if that Wicklow dam goes,
the Liffey’s finished
- Kavanagh washed away from the canal,
the Luas gone suas,
the Spire on fire,
and the whore with the Jacuzzi in the sewer
bollocksed.
Can we have a bit of the old Coleridge,
they all read him in Ballsbridge,
a D4 poem:
they never got the point of haiku south of Ringsend,
until they got to Bono overlooking the Bay.

Come on now,
you’ve only one day to write your masterpiece
before they fleece you… 

He holds him with his bittering eye,
the Cabinet man stood still
and listens like a naked lad:
the Foreigner had his will.

The elected turd sat on his thrown,
he cannot help but hear.
And so went on that wissened man
the green-eyed Foreigner.

I told you he told him that withering night
the truth of the  matter that happened all right
Twas as if he’d broken the seals of confession
and found all the scripts translated.

The Party was the background, the love of all before it
The movement right or wrong, the chorus of their anthem
Wolfe Tone and Emmet held their shirts, the boys the hurleys tight
To hell with all begrudgers, let them take their lives away.

I am the Boss, you are the Boss,
we are all the Walrus
Hip hip hurray, three cheers for Dev
You could smell the Ard Fheis and press the flesh.

It was a wild tribe around the flame
totem poles in every pocket
electricity from screwed-down sockets
the building boom was dead
Long live the building boom.

At length out come Albert the Boss,
through the sweat he came;
as if he had been on Christian soil,
we praised it in Sod’s name.

‘God save you ancient Foreigner
From Poland that plagues you so
Why misery? ‘ - with double cross
I shot Albert the Boss.’

And I had done the Devil’s thing
And it would blow the gaff
For all agreed I had slain the lie
That made the profits flow
Ah bastard they said our lie to nail
That made the profits flow.

Like castor sugar
mountain tops are sweet with snow
an edge on the wind

Logs ripe for the flame
a sacrifice burnt for warmth
embers smile and wait

Redbreast for winter
fancy-dress party over
pride bleeding on snow 

(Canto 32 ends here) 

CANTO XXX11 (continues here)

"He has no water Boss,
the fucker hasn’t washed in days,
I can smell him.
Just say the word and he’ll be snuffed out Boss,
I’ll claim him for you, he’s doomed Boss…

A.. aa… a OK Boss. Whatever you say Boss. 
I love it.  You’re a fuckin genius Boss.
Of course I’ll lock him in there Boss.
There’ll be no way he’ll get out 
until he’s fried Boss.
I’ll roast the fucker today Boss.
I’ve seen the Godfather too Boss,
we won’t waste any fuckin horse’s head
on this cunt Boss"

With that, our Hit Man put his mobile back in the holster,
and hoped his chief would be better humour
after the Man U match
- it was time to stop the nosy parker. 

CANTO XXXII (starts here)

Sleep intervened,
weaved its way with him,
he never opened a page,
never know the will of the ALMIGHTY.

If he was exposed to the mind of the creator,
right now he’d have lost the vestige of trust,
almighty confused, vulnerable and decayed,
facing up to ruin,
a hummingbird with no reverse gear,
a cluster of disabilities,
unfit to receive entreaties,
the ALMIGHTY was on its last legs.

Without the discovery of honesty in Ireland,
the ALMIGHTY was so thirsty
he was a bundle of mirages,
visions of home,
imaginations of despair,
there was no firm ground under his seat,
surrounded by the knitting,
and minor deities casting lots.

The presences of ETERNITY
were reduced to gambling
on the outcome of the quest. 
Second by second,
they lost another semblance of personality,
it was time anticlockwise, 
the drift to incoherence.

A little child turned to her father
"Dada, can I please watch the television?
Dadd, please, please, please,
please may I watch some television
please Dada?"

"You may" said the lazy man.

"Hurray", she took his thumb
and pulled it towards the other room,
dropped a tea-towel on the tiles of the kitchen floor
and shuffled across the cold into the nursery. 
"Come-on Daddy."

She occupied the armrest of a cream sofa:
"who’s on the menu today, Dada."

The dressing-gown wanted to hear the news on the radio,
a vacant and a sleepy mind
not yet woken with rhyme
- here was a man wrestling with consequences,
up to his waist in the flood of bishops
swimming for their lives,
the Dubhai default by Bertie Ahern,
confessions by Brian Cowen.

He heard Martin ask
whether there was a phedophile ring
in his parishes,
funny handshakes.
It was as if you could turn in no direction
without transubstantiation,
such was the transfiguration
of abominating proportions.

The father of the child needed tea
and the internet.
his past stripped naked,
the flesh of his heroes
mortified and betrayed,
it was as if he’d become an old woman re-reft,
out of wool,
all trust bust.
News or booze,
bulletins to distract
the dreams he used to have
in front of the Stations of the Cross,
quicksand now.

The hope with which he crossed the floor with Dev,
and took control of the reins of power,
and wrote the Constitution
that balanced Church and State
in a web of deference,
reverence by association with purple..

All those days painted black now,
this was the last Sunday morning
before the start of the Afterlife:
only the unlikely discovery of the impossible dream
lay between this male
and trees whose leaves would never return. 

(TO BE CONTINUED) 

Words fail me.
I’m moved to tears during the first watch of your video. I want to be our friend and give you a big hug. That the emotional connection. I’ve already tweeted from my business and my personal accounts. I want to see what you mean by “Come write a guest blog post”.

In a nutshell, I’m going to steal your strap-line: I’m going to say “I am what I do” for the rest of my life. To me this is one hell of a profound connection. In 1995, I said “I am who I am because of where I come from” rather than “I am who I am despite where I came from”.

Your video has moved me on to another level.

Thank you, from across a sea, a tide of connectivity,
Paul
_____________________________________

About 52 minutes ago, I read a tweet from @ThinkTank_. It had a link to a video of a man talking about himself.  He was at a conference in USA. The man was an advertising copywriter, until recently.  Then he stopped being anything but himself: he began being Eric Proulx. This is his story.

One of the striking things is that Eric tell his story in collaboration with many others stories, other people who’ve made change in their lives.  I found this very moving.  

Must mean I’m ready to be moved.
Move myself on to another stage of being me.  I’m ready to say "I am what I do."  I’m not a poet, not a business writer, not even a blogger.  Not even a father, a husband.  I am simply me.  Paul O’Mahony (here known as omaniblog) writes poetry, writes for business, blogs, fathers, husbands, connects … 

CANTO XXX1 (continues and ends here)

"Sure the person who takes the first stone out of the way
is responsible for the avalanche." 

"Is that where you got the Strike… Strike… Shopping?"

"Let’s put Newry to bed, for Christ’s sake"
came from behind the bar,
the curly one cleaning glasses,

"I used to work up there,
it was always a bit of Tijuana,
full of fellas with their striped diesel." 

"Because I could not stop for Drink,
she kindly stopped for me"
the pint glass held but just Ourselves
and Bestiality. 

"It’s about time you paid your respects
to your elders and betters,
Poetry is an act of memory
and the ritual of giving
a remarkable funeral to words.
I too was invented,
I wasn’t born designed,
fit for purpose.
Accident, accident, accident
- that’s what it is.
You have forgotten me,
overlooked my job of keeping you
to the straits and narrows of outrageous fortune.
Once more, I appeal for Englynion,
poetic minions essential to the feast.
You’ve been at it as if your job
was to write a new Inferno.
Cut out all this blank stuff,
verse with your heart, not head.
Give us the music of syllables,
paired like white and black notes at the dance.
Poetry is leitmotiv,
not a surface tune of rhyming couplets.
Go into Dickinson’s world,
climb into her attic,
open a package, any cluster will do,
look how she places her dashes,
and what she doesn’t say.
Bring back the silence.
Why do you think poets invented empty space
if it wasn’t to celebrate
the sound of letters growing?
It’s not that they’re lazy,
that they have an aversion to completing the line,
that they need margins to think,
or fill the time between opening and closing:
poets simply fillet better,
spending more time taking-away 
than adding-in.
Remember Ezra Pound:
what did he do with all the Wasteland?
If you could find a scalpel like that,
you could reduce the Epic to a Haiku."

MOLESKINE’s eye flickered,
he lifted his page-maker back to the page,
and went back to receiving writing
as he’d done from the beginning. 

This was the seventh pen that had contributed,
a biro from doylecollection.com,
the Mont Blanc was missing:
I had no idea where I’d put it,
it was a huge loss.

I reached over and opened my John Rocha Manbag,
removed MR TAYTO
‘The Man Inside The Jacket’
on to the counter. 
I could see Nelson’s Pillar standing,
and the Number 4 bus with bicycles behind
on O’Connell Street in Dublin
before the explosion:
1966 Year of the Dog, or the Rat
or the year a Jesuit forced me to stand
and read German in front of the class,
while he massaged the underside of my jaw
each time I stumbled in pronunciation. 
MR TAYTO with his red jacket,
striped trousers and flashy hat,
I’d been jaundiced too,
but it was miles from Moore Street
I was reared, without a Granny,
and no talk of the Great Famine.
But I had more brothers at home,
and I was older:
when President Kennedy came to the Racecourse in Limerick,
and mixed-up fast horses with beautiful women,
there were no Taytos for him,
the factory in Coolock wasn’t ready.
There are no photographs of JFK on a haystack
with Guinness on Salt and Vinegar.

The volume I had beside me was from Ennistymon,
a corner shop across the way from the Falls Hotel,
it was irresistible.
I would let the UNIVERSE guide me,
open the book wherever nature decreed,
I would read the Runes
as if they were tealeaves from a cup
poured by Daisy,
the woman who loved me
- even the day I dropped the Uncle’s car-keys
in the rainwater barrel.

I can see  
"A contribution arising from the sale of this book
will be donated to Aware
a face helping to defeat Depression"

I could think it was like sand fighting tide,
procrastinating.
I rushed to reconsider the risk of opening a page,
and finding it full of The Dishonest Men,
The Hollow Men,
bloated on potato crisps.
What if MR TAYTO’s friends included
Charlie Haughey or Paddy Power? 
Would that force me down a blind alley,
just when I needed inspiration most?

CANTO XXX1 (begins here)

The black robes are shamed,
tabernacle rent,
the Host is exposed to fire,
all the churches of Ireland 
have been burnt to the ground.
The people are eating the bishops,
spitting out gristle,
every rosary beads has been snapped,
the altarwine used to marinade
tongues slashed out.
I saw one priest survive
as the Archbishop was given a last chance
to understand his tears wouldn’t well:
he offered his testicles,
tried to reason with the victim of the mass kidnapping
his brothers had orchestrated.

Before they were wiped out,
the nuns took confession, 
they knew the words by heart,
knew that penance was auto-generated.

Many of the priests went rushing to eternal damnation shouting
"I desire Limbo, re-invent it.
Hell is too good for my soul,
I’ve been Lucifer’s minister,
sent by Beelzebub,
child of the unthinkable,
unspeakable.
I knew we made bishops of savage men
who were never baptised
except by the water of the gutter.
Burn me.  I too knew bishops
were promoted to lead the Ring,
we invented a method of snuffing out your children’s games 
because we loved the passion of envy,
the stations of the tosspot.
We were inspired by the joy of pain,
the ritual of flagellation,
Opus Dei was but a secret society,
a fall-guy, a handy distraction
to deflect attention from our true vocation.
John Charles McQuaid claimed
he’d discussed his mental reservation
with Michael Collins and Winston Churchill,
we knew it was Dev he was pulling the crozier on."

All the Oblates died quickly,
Christian Brothers claimed they weren’t priests
but no one swallowed that.
Who saw the nun rubbing incense
into the skin of parish priest in Donegal
before he was fried alive in goose fat? 

All the clergy that had stayed silent
were given the option of being dunked in honey
and fed to specially starved pigs,
or being fed little rats bred to feed on intestines.
I saw a convent dedicated to smoked priest
on apple wood.
There are no faithful now,
the Book of Kells was a casualty.

"Bring back the Catechism", the young ones cried.
"We’ll write the answers this time."
The crowd insisted no guillotine was used:
hanging, drawing and quartering 
was the merciful way to go:
only the most recent convents 
were granted this privilege.

It was as if Dante was a stroll in the park,
and Job beset by a minor irritant,
this was pure savage,
shock and awe,
Munch’s Scream cubed
to the power of ten
to the power of the number of stars
that chatter in the night sky.

No poet,
even Kavanagh,
could do it justice.
That happened, after Prime Time,
on the national television station.
The only religious staff left in Ireland after that
were Reverend Mothers and their Sisters.
An awful lot of them knitted their way
through the Reign of Terror
- the Rising of the Moon
as it came to be called. 

"Is there anyone there?" said the Strangler,
Flopping against the back of the pub;
And his car on the corner its engine off,
Clamped, the tax not paid.
And a crow flew up and out of the eaves
Above the stranglers head.
And he rose against the door again a second time
"Is there anyone there?" he said.
But no one attended to the Strangler

- it was past closing time
and they locked the world outside.
The business of dividing the spoils had begun.
One less would be no harm.

"We are the honest men
We are the purchased men
Loaning together
Half-casts filled with pride. Alas! 
Our wise voices, when
We present together
Are loud and meaningful
As sand in hour-glass
Or stag’s feet over bracken leaves
In our grand estate.

Tone without edge, plumes without flow
Sustaining force, character with style;

Those who have passed
With suspect eyes, to life’s lesser wealth
Forget us - if only - known as soft
Genteel souls , but never
As the honest men
The purchased men."

A tall fellow from Offaly,
in a pin-striped suit,
fresh from the gym,
opened proceedings.

He played with the cigar in his left pocket
and gently stroked the slight trace of growth
from the long day he’d had
on the phone to his broker.

"Although it is a fierce evening
down by one of the horseboxes,
an old jock sits tending his boots,
in the shadows almost invisible
a tricolour shirt
and his racing stick with lost tong.
I tell you this depression is the new black." 

(Canto 31 to be continued later)

CANTO XXX

He marches to his own drum,
he’s mad.  A pigtailed man
who used to auction property
before the good days.
He writes poetry and offers it
in The Kingdom Bar in Listowel
before June gets going.
He came to be,
to present himself and get attention.
That’s all he eats these days.
Ever since he realised he’s mad,
he’s been at it.
So when he passed the Writer’s Table in Farmgate,
he deserved all the praise he got
for pointing out his body was better looked-after
than his mind.

I have dispatched a foot-soldier to the public library:
"Go bring me The Táin"
I have an illuminated manuscript here without content
- form without the guts.

There is blood in that book,
a riverload, and armies watching,
while hero and antihero
battle to the deaths of both.
Bring me the head of Garcia Lorca,
or whoever it was that first captured
the brothers at war,
the ghost of Achilles entreats you,
linger not.

I need to drink from those bulls,
the Queen of Aileach commands. 
Across the corporate casket,
the creeping consumers crept,
the crane’s in Cricklewood crashed
closely on the Common.
Cosset your crooked crisis,
courage your culture’s cost,
cease the crowd from calling 
your conversation crashed.

One night
when the royal bed had been prepared
for yer man and Medh,
in Roundstone Fort in Connacht, 
they engaged in fisticuffs:

"Is it true what they say, Squeeze?"
said yer man.

Well-cut woman, property developer’s wife:
"Get on with it", said the woman,
"What  made you say that?"

"Look here" says yer man
"you’re better off now than the day I took you."

"I was well-off before you", says Medh.

"If you were, no one told me" said yer man
"apart from your thighs and breasts
that those feckin planners kept plundering and raiding."

"Not so" said Medh "for my father was Patrick Neary,
High King of Irish Banking, son of Lenihan, son of Ahern,
son of Charlie McCreevy, son of Albert Reynolds.
He had six daughters: Kathleen, Patricia, Miriam,
Noleen - the forgotten one -
Medh - I was the boldest
and most venerated of them all,
the most generous in proferring gifts and favours,
the best at gossip, strife and conflict,
I had forty-eight thousand labourers,
the sons of Poland,
and as many more the sons of naieve Paddys,
and, for every house of them, I had ten,
and for every ten I had nine more,
and eight, and seven, and six, and five,
and four, and three, and two, and one
- and that was just my building industry.
Then my father gave me a development plot from Roundstone,
that’s why I’m called Medh of Roundstone."

And so she put him in his place,
yer man was reduced to admitting
"I have never heard of a development plot
with planning permission that depended on a woman’s assets
except this one…
which is why I came to lie with you,
you reminded me of Mary O’Rourke."

"All the same" said Medh
"my stealth is greater than yours."

"You shock me" said yer man
"no one has more stealth than myself,
I’ve been told this by the Chairman of Anglo Irish Bank
and the Chief Executive of Allied Irish."

So they rose from the bed
and went to war to find
who was the stealthiest of them all. 
They brought their nobbled racehorses,
their puffed-up boars,
their swineful phrases of the past.
It wasn’t until they had exhaused
all their subterfuges,
and their confusing rhetoric,
all their lying budgets and predictions
that they found the bull
the bull with the white lies
that sparkled to deceive…

For a while it looked as if she was undone,
as if she’d be bested by yer man.
She dispatched her minions
to scour the provinces of all Ireland
to find a bull to beat yer man.
"Go rake over embers,
find ancient woes,
ancestral scores unsettled,
go find me a grievance
that has yet to be settled.
Go back seven hundred years if you will,
go back to the Wild Swans, the geese,
the Fir Bolg, even the Partholonians,
you must find me a way to show this cretin
that I am more than a match for his bull.
If I have to produce my Papal Bull,
so be it…"

She had a man, servant to her every want,
Brian of the Handkerchief:
"I know where to find such a bull and better,
in the province of Ulster,
in the district of Strabane,
in the house of McGuinness.
His name is Shamrock Adams,
the brown bull of Sinn Fein."

And so the war began,
and so the foot-soldier fell,
until the Bann was crossed
with the sign of Patrick’s Cross.
On one bank Cuchulain,
on the other Ferdia,
a battle to the death
to see who was the greatest bullshitter of them all. 

(end of Canto 30)