Good firearms make good neighbors. Everyone’s very polite to each other.
FONTENOY 1745 by Emily Lawless
I. Before the battle, night.
Oh, bad the march, the weary march, beneath these alien skies,
But good the night, the friendly night, that soothes our tired eyes.
And bad the war, the tedious war, that keeps us sweltering here,
But good the hour, the friendly hour, that brings the battle near.
That brings us on to battle, that summons to their share
The homeless troops, the banished men, the exiled sons of Clare.
Oh, little Corca Baiscinn, the wild, the bleak, the fair!
Oh, little stony pastures, whose flowers are sweet, if rare!
Oh, rough the rude Atlantic, the thunderous, the wide,
Whose kiss is like a soldier’s kiss which will not be denied!
The whole night long we dream of you, and waking think we’re there -
Vain dream, and foolish waking, we never shall see Clare.
The wind is wild to-night, there’s battle in the air;
The wind is from the west, and it seems to blow from Clare.
Have you nothing, nothing for us, loud brawler of the night?
No news to warm our heart strings, to speed us through the fight?
In this hollow, star-pricked darkness as in the sun’s hot glare,
In sun-tide, in star-tide, we thirst, we starve for Clare.
Hark, yonder through the darkness one distant rat-at-tat!
The old foe stirs out there, God bless his soul for that!
The old foe musters strongly, he’s coming home at last,
And Clare’s Brigade may claim its own wherever blows fall fast.
Send us, ye western breezes, our full, our rightful share,
For Faith and fame, and Honour, and the ruined hearths of Clare.
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- After the Battle; early dawn, Clare coast.
“Mary Mother, shield us! Say, what men are ye,
Sweeping past so swiftly on this morning sea?”
“Without sails or rowlocks merrily we glide
Home to Corca Baiscinn on the brimming tide.”
"Jesus save you, gentry! Why are you so white,
Sitting all so straight and still in this misty light?
“Nothing ails us, brother; joyous souls are we,
Sailing home together, on the morning sea.”
"Cousins, friends, and kinsfolk, children of the land,
Here we come together, a merry, rousing, band;
Sailing home together from the last great fight,
Home to Clare from Fontenoy, in the morning light.
Men of Corca Baiscinn, men of Clare’s Brigade,
Harken stony hills of Clare, hear the charge we made;
See us come together, singng from the fight,
Home to Corca Baiscinn, in the morning light."
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But here there are no cows, mate.
Hahaha.
Frost read that poem to group of Russian dignitary’s towards the end of the cold war. It was believed to have played a huge part in the tearing down of the wall. It’s understood the Russians who were present discussed it afterwards and said if the Americans agreed to stop subjecting them to poetry readings they would consider taking down the wall.
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Beyond my fence there dwells a German
I’m fairly sure his name is Herman
He’s growing a rood of Christmas trees
Snagging a couple sure it’s a breeze
He’s on to me about thieving Paddy vermin.
You can have both it seems Choco.
The world owes you an apology
Not just the umpire
Not just the French Open
Not just racists who ask if you feel intimidated by Sharapova’s basic looks
Or being drug tested more than
The basic looking actual drug user
The nurses and doctors who ignored
Your knowledge
Of your own body
Almost causing your death
Every time they questioned your
Femininity
Ability
Strength
Integrity
Victory
They did so because of your skin
Asian parents who mold their children are
Tiger mothers
White parents who risk everything
Turn sex tapes into millions
Are momagers
But your father who made legends out of
Compton Concrete
Shaping you and your sister
Like Michelangelo chiseled David
He is loud
Obnoxious
Insane
The world owes you an apology
But we know it will never come
Because first they would have to acknowledge
The hatred
The racism
It isn’t your black panther suit
Your beauty
Your millions
You venting to a umpire
A broken racket
Or a demand of proper medical care
It’s your blackness that offends
Your power when you should be powerless
Your confidence
When you should always grovel
Always remind yourself
That you should thank them
for allowing you
To be on the courts at all
As if a Queen tells the jester
thank you for her
Throne
You are the living breathing embodiment of
#blackgirlmagic
The dream of our ancestors
The power of our foremothers
The strength that the
Middle passage
Slavery
Jim Crow
and America
Could not break
Your are more than the
GOAT
You are goddess
Fearless
More than tennis
You are a living black legend
And they hate you for it
#Serena #GOAT #USOpenTennis #JustDoIt #ShareYourSSunday
#FistAndFire #Buymybookifyouwanna book link in bio
I love a poem with a nice hashtag in the middle, gives a really contemporary vibe.
Maybe I should post more here, Derek Walcott or TS Eliot or the like. I read a lot of poetry and it’s sad to see this thread fall out of use.
Sharapova is better looking than her though…
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And she’s not a darky.
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You can’t say that. It’s racist innit?
I get the impression that Sharapova thinks she’s the greatest thing since the shite from her arse. And she’s middlin’ to poor in the overall scheme of things.
Kerry I thank you…
Up to Croker in ‘97, my dream it began
Standing in the Nally, I said ‘Maybe I can’
The famine was ended and Kerry were back
As a minor four years later, I’d give it a crack
Thank god I’m from Kerry, we sure are the best
History, tradition, st Brendan on the crest
I played right on the edge, not a backward step taken
Will I ever apologise? You must be mistaken
By God, it was special, the Green and Gold on my back
I did my job well, in the air I’d attack,
To the jersey I love you, I wore you with pride
Didn’t win them all but so hard I tried.
The future is exciting, we must support our team
It’s been so emotional and we’ve shared the dream
That’s a big part of it, that’s what we’re about
It’s the jersey, it’s Kerry, It’s ‘Up the Kingdom!’ we shout
I’ll never forget ye, ye know who ye are
Bonded forever, on the pitch, at the bar
We climbed all the mountains, they look good from the top
Celtic crosses in our pockets, those memories won’t stop.
Fitzgerald stadium was home, it’s where I kicked my last ball
After hugging my brothers, the tears did fall
I shouldn’t be sad, we were good for each other
Now’s the right time to hand it to another
The next chapter is here. Oh I can’t wait
No ifs, no buts, only total faith
Hilary, Lola Rose and Indie by my side
Made it a no brainer to eventually decide
My Kerry, my Family, my Mom and my Nan
Donaghys, Fitzgeralds and the O’Connors are my clan,
This sums up my journey and one thing’s for sure,
In the words of John B, ‘I’m one lucky hoor’"
You can’t say tinker either. Even though it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary.
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Well I’m glad that she copyrighted that because otherwise the whole internet would be taking credit.
THE BETRAYAL
a poem for my father
by Michael D. Higgins
This man is seriously ill
the doctor had said a week before,
calling for a wheelchair.
It was
after they rang me
to come down
and persuade you
to go in
condemned to remember your eyes
as they met mine in that moment
before they wheeled you away.
It was one of my final tasks
to persuade you to go in,
a Judas chosen not by Apostles
but by others more broken;
and I was, in part,
relieved when they wheeled you from me,
down that corridor, confused,
without a backward glance.
And when I had done it,
I cried, out on the road,
hitching a lift to Galway and away
from the trouble
of your cantankerous old age
and rage too,
at all that had in recent years
befallen you.
All week I waited to visit you
but when I called, you had been moved
to where those dying too slowly
were sent,
a poorhouse, no longer known by that name,
but, in the liberated era of Lemass,
given a saint’s name, ‘St Joseph’s’.
Was he Christ’s father,
patron saint of the Worker,
the mad choice of some pietistic politician?
You never cared.
Nor did you speak too much.
You had broken an attendant’s glasses,
the holy nurse told me,
when you were admitted.
Your father is a very difficult man,
as you must know. And Social Welfare is slow
and if you would pay for the glasses,
I would appreciate it.
It was 1964, just after optical benefit
was rejected by de Valera for poorer classes
in his Republic, who could not afford,
as he did
to travel to Zurich
for there regular tests and their
rimless glasses.
It was decades earlier
you had brought me to see him
pass through Newmarket-on-Fergus
as the brass and reed bank struck up,
cheeks red and distended to the point
where a child wondered whether
they would burst as they blew
their trombones.
The Sacred Heart Procession and de Valera,
you told me, were the only occasions
when their instruments were taken
from the rusting, galvinised shed
where they stored them in anticipation
of the requirements of Church and State.
Long before that, you had slept
in ditches and dug-outs,
prayed in terror at ambushes
with others who later debated
whether de Valera was lucky or brilliant
in getting the British to remember
that he was an American.
And that debate had not lasted long
in concentration camps in Newbridge
and the Curragh, where mattresses were burned,
as the gombeens decided that the new State
was a good thing,
even for business.
In the dining room of St Joseph’s
the potatoes were left in the middle of the table,
in a dish, toward which
you and many other Republicans
stretched feeble hands that shook.
Your eyes were bent as you peeled
with the long thumbnail I had often watched
scrape a pattern on the leather you had toughened for our shoes.
Your eyes when you looked at me
were a thousand miles away,
now totally broken,
unlike those times even
of rejection, when you went at sixty
for jobs you never got,
too frail to load vans, or manage
the demands of selling.
And I remember
when you came back to me,
your regular companion on such occasions,
and said: ‘They think that I’m too old
for the job. I said that I was fifty-eight
but they knew I was past sixty.’
A body ready for transportation
fit only for a coffin, that made you
too awkward
for death at home.
The shame of a coffin exit
through a window sent you here,
where my mother told me you asked
only for her to place her cool hand
under your neck.
And I was there when they asked
would they give you a Republican funeral,
in that month when you died,
between the end of the First Programme for Economic Expansion
and the Second.
I look at your photo now,
taken in the beginning of bad days,
with your surviving mates
in Limerick.
Your face haunts me, as do these memories;
and all these things have been scraped
in my heart,
and I can never hope to forget
what was, after all,
a betrayal.
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