A New Challenge: Songs Without Music
4. How To Carve a Celtic Heart
1. My dad asked my brother "Where's Doug?"
"Doug is a poet. Poets go to Dublin. That's what poets do."
Poets go to Dublin
That’s what poets do
To brood along the Liffey
And stir the coals anew
They are haunting the canal banks
And the pubs of Baggot Street
Rewinding vanished traces
They mostly meet defeat
They jog along Ullysses’ trail
On the 16th day of June
They stray on storied cobbles
Genuflect in dusty rooms
They raise their eyes to Wicklow
Howth and all the rest
Embark at Heuston Station
Out to the fabled West
They drain a glass in Dingle
They grace the Galway shore
They take a seasick journey
To the forts on Inish Mor
They climb in Connemara
Croagh Patrick in Mayo
They rest under Benbulbin
With the master at Sligo
On the trail of Seamus Heaney
Kavanaugh and Yeats
Swift and Shaw and Beckett
Oscar Wilde and all the greats
They seek to solve the mystery
If anybody can
The language here is English
But the spark is Ireland
They are hoping that the lightning
Might strike here again
They can always hear the thunder
But all they get is rain
2. Written upon reading in the "Stones of Aran - Labyrinth" by Tim Robinson of the secret ancient shining paths across the Limestone flags of Inish Mor
I choose the shining path
It may not shine for you
For me it’s traced as clear and strong
As angels in the dew
And like all paths, it’s broken
And the way is never straight
Stone walls cross it’s borders
Knocked down to make a gate
The way is marked quite clearly
Or so it seems to me
Always on the cliff edge
Towards the back lit sea
It shines because the others
Those who went before
Burnished with their footsteps
As they travelled to the shore
At the end begins the journey
Across a darkened sea
Wave after wave that opens
Other waves of mystery
The path is always shining
Sun and moon and stars
Illuminate and educate
Where we’ve been, will be and are
3. So if you write in praise of Ireland, as I have and will again, I think you have to mention another side of the country that is not so palatable or praiseworthy.
In Connemara there is a pretty town called Letterfrack. At the St. Joseph's Industrial School there, young boys were abused and tortured and, it seems, killed.
Letterfrack sits beneath the "12 pins" - a backbone of beautiful mountains. The closest outcrop is called "Diamond Hill".
It is a gorgeous area that I have visited several times on the bicycle tours.
The past is a far off country
But under Diamond Hill
The Christian Brothers raised the beast
And Ireland trembles still
12 mountains in the distance
Crowding all around
12 apostles in their bible
Faces folded towards the ground
100 graves are scattered
In the woods above the town
100 lives were shattered
With nothing written down
There’s a sorrow on the coastline
A sorrow in the glen
At a roadside shrine on the edge of town
Sorrow once again
I think I hear the pipers
At the closing of the day
I think I hear their voices
How can I turn away
4. How To Carve a Celtic Heart
I climbed out of bed to find that the rain
Had slammed downstream from the river again
And the fire was out and hills were gone
Wool socks and coffee needed
Half an hour later it was under control
Van on the box for a little soul
What can I do to swim through the day
Maybe carve some Celtic Hearts.
First draw a grid on the bass wood block
Sketch in the weave so the corners lock
Celtic knots with the edges clear
The tighter the grid the better
Always good to make a plan
I tried when I was a younger man
I thought I saw a place to stand
With somebody beside me
I remember a day when the wind was high
Kites in the field and you and I
And our dopey dog all charging round
I’ve never been so happy
Old grey house and an old green car
That caught fire one day and there you are
Rolling down hill and sliding away
Everything on fire
There are four hearts in that Celtic knot
And at least four times I gave it a shot
But the hearts only join in a passing strand
And the centre just stays empty
Two coats of stain and soft beeswax
Hone the chisels and flatten the backs
Another day and the seasons change
Just me now and the rain
5. Rain Gear
On the rack behind my rain gear
I found my beginner mind
It still fit!
I slipped inside
And stepped into a morning fresh and new
6. Say Nothin'
I was walking along the Liffey in Dublin and two wannabe's singled me out. In the end nothing really happened but in my John Wayne mind, it bothered me. As men we are taught to confront and never back down. Taught by whom?
Not sure...
"Whatever you say,
Say nothing” says I
You might as well leave it at that
Those hard boys from Dublin
Will never be talkin'
But they’ll sing at the drop of a hat.
Two of them called out
“Hey Dad are you walkin’”
It gave me a bit of a chill
I left one on the walkway
And one in the Liffey
He might be swimming there still.
So that only happened
In my tiny mind
I just kept walking that day
They started to follow
And threw out some insults
And then they wandered away.
So funny to think
That now I’m a victim
It wasn’t always that way
But white hair and poundage
Has softened my image
And now I’ve got nothin’ to say.
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7. Stones
One stone
Of all the stones
On all the broken beaches of the nine worlds
Stops your eye
You polish it and keep it on your shelf for forty years
One soul
Of all the souls
In all the maddened crowds of the nine worlds
Stops your eye
You polish it and keep it in your heart for forty years
We were handed sharp and dangerous tools
We shape and cut and polish
We choose, react, manipulate
We think we find the perfect stone
But the stone dreams only of the sea
