I pictured the monument being shipped on the back of lorry as if it

Was sailing across the land through the psyche of Ireland planted

at the foot of Crough Patrick.

 

THE FAMINE SHIP

 

Like a funeral cortege in Dublin

Maynooth and Mullingar.

The famine came sailing through

Longford and Castlebar.

It anchored just off Clew bay

At the foot of the pilgrim hill.

Disturbing the red marrow soil like

a plough in  a furrowed drill.

 

The sculptured bones are flowers

From the spuds of our blighted past.

Dead but not forgotten in the hull

Of Erin’s mast.

 

Like a poppy in a wilderness, a sin-

Gle tear tear upon the soil, the souls

Of a million dead flow through this

Mortal coil. The artist’s indentations

Scarred like wounds on Irelands cries

Melting from a candles prayer in

The tear ducts of our eyes.

 

The sculptured bones are flowers

From the spuds of our blighted past.

Dead but not forgotten in the hull

Of Erin’s mast.

 

We have no pangs of hunger now

And no wish to leave our land but

Deep down within our hearts are

The bones revealed in sand

Layered flesh upon the bone.

Nourished on Irelands suffering

Our bellies will never groan.

 

The sculptured bones are flowers

From the spuds of our blighted past.

Dead but not forgotten in the hull

Of Erin’s mast.

PITCH AND TOSS-SMALL CHANGE 2

 

Lahinch, Co Clare, didn’t seem the right place

To write a poem.  Tourists paying through

The nose for screen-printed t-shirts etc.

Symbols of old Ireland.

 That night under candlelight, the dampness

Crept in unnoticed until you brushed the fabric

Walls of the tent. We played snap on a cheap

Plastic picnic table, my wife’s hand slapping down

On it like a ton of bricks on a Drum Cree riot day.

 

A torch light shone through unzipping the tent

And a voice came from out there in the campsite,

“Be quiet, there has been complaints”, breaking

The momentum and craic of a family on holiday,

Escaping from the north in July.

 We turned down the volume of our innocence

And laughter, my little boy cried. We played

quietly, Rummy and Poker for small change.

My wife and children shift slowly away from

The light, shadows filtering of to sleep.

 

An unrecognizable map of coins lie on the table,

Symbols of harps, queens head, lions and salmons,

Hexagonal twenty pence pieces and round Irish,

Five p’s with a thistle. Wouldn’t it be great to toss?

Two 2p’s of a lolly stick into the sky, the heads

And tails of the Irish symbols twisting and turning,

Bright sparks of mystery like a leaf falling, sun

Polishing deep layer of leafy foliage encrusted

over what I can’t recall.