One Finger Up Greeting

One Finger Up Greeting

One finger raised

greeting driver to driver, as I

drive the quiet country

roads round Annamoe.

A man thing it seems to me

says “I see you” and also

“I see you seeing me” in reply.

Women seem to prefer the wave

suggesting friendship and knowing.

But for men one finger seeing is

fine, even with strangers

Why does this gesture come again

to mind lying here in a formula hotel

in Portlaoise?

Unlike quiet Tiglin,

N7 trucks run busy through the night.

Find a scrap of paper,

use a bookies’ pencil, write this

leaning on District and Circle.

Searched the drawer for letterhead

and a Gideon for support, but

no Bible,

only a Golden Pages

in case you’d want to buy rather than pray,

in the wee small hours

The One Finger Up Greeting

on my mind, took me home,

like a prayer, a thought.

Martin Swords

May 2010

Portlaoise

Hermitage

Hermitage

Many’s the fainthearted

Full of fear and fright

Guided from dark danger

By the calling bell and light

Some are the downtrodden

Seeking to find their way

Some are the lost forgotten

Journeying out to pray

Others seek the hallowed ground

To stand where Kevin stood

To walk by the lake where Kevin walked

To the Saint’s cell in the wood

Most are good God fearing

Knowing right from wrong

Longing to touch the hermits hem

To grow in the hermits song

Longing to touch the hermits hem

To rest in the sanctuary found

To grow in the way of the hermits step

In Glendalough Holy ground

To grow in the way of the hermits step

To find in themselves again

The simple truth of quiet content

The core of self, the inner being

The honest look, that way of seeing

The hermits gift, the hermits tranquil way

Martin Swords Oct. 2009

to an insect on a windowsill

to an insect on a windowsill

god you’re ugly

and yet to another insect…..

who am i to feel superior

you’re good at what you do

perfectly adapted to what you are

i couldn’t cope in your life

and you can’t drive a car

yet both our lives could be

stamped out in an instant

i know it and you perhaps

more blessed, can’t

we are both alively

a little both the same

but god…..

you’re still ugly

martin swords

june 2009

As I Came Over Wicklow Gap

As I Came Over Wicklow Gap




As I came over Wicklow Gap
All on a summer’s day
A sight I met which held me trapped
And took my breath away
A view emerged as if to say
Stop and remember well today
Treasure the memory from this day
Before you’re on your way, now
Before you’re on your way



As I came over Wicklow Gap
All in a summer still
The sun shone on the mountain cap
A single shaft of golden spill
And lit ablaze the very hill
I can recall it still
If ever my spirit’s ill
It lifts my heart and always will, now
I know it always will




Martin Swords May 2009

These Are The Days

These Are the Days





These are the days
When nothing seems to happen
When plans go awry
Someone mentions pancakes
Instead and off we go
Pancakes too thick as bread
Others thin and crispy
Like cardboard someone said
Extra large square shaped and folded
Like a broadsheet, The Daily Pancake,
Unleavened, brittle like a parchment
sacred book this Easter Sunday Morn
Luscious Chocolate everywhere.
Laughter mixed with maple, lemon, sugar
As everyone ate too many.
Dad told them something about
Baa Baa Blacksheep and tax
Which was interesting, but not funny.
Nothing happened. Everything happened.
These are the days when life happens.




Martin Swords April 2009

A Bowl of Rice Always

A Bowl of Rice Always







A fractured home
A distanced heartache

A chopstick, an empty cup
A windchime in a garden

A bowl of rice
Always the small things





Martin Swords
May 2009

Listening at Sally Gap

Listening at Sally Gap






There is always a wind
one or other of the four winds blowing
moaning with the loneliness of the place
soft ground tough grass and hard sheep.


Ghosts of silent footed rebels tramping to the
safety of their mountain valley holds
before the Military.
The wind still carries their shouts


their cries their pleadings and their hopes
mixing with the bleak empty sounds of this place
a trickle of water on stone
a gurgle of water on wet black turf


Is that the thin echo of a sleán slicing sods,
or that heavy hollow sound, the turf-cutter’s
clunkin’ bottle of sweet milky tea
corked with a scruntch of newspaper


Or a bit of broken fence banging in the wind




Martin Swords
May 2009

Far From Athy

Far From Athy




Pat told stories of old times, living in digs
in Athy, working on the roofin’ for aul’ Hammond.
Me with my booklearning piped up
“I heard of Athy,
“And look! a barge comes bringing from Athy
And other far- flung towns mythologies.” ”,
lines from the canalbankpoet.
“Bet he never saw it in the lashing
rain”, Pat observed dryly.
No. Nor I had never seen it his way,
from a cold slate roof breaking galvanised
tacking nails with the long ripper,
and only the price of two pints in his pocket,
till Friday.

He was glad for me that I hadn’t.


Martin Swords May 2009

i.m. Pat Swords 1915 - 1978
On His Birthday 1st May

The Smith

What is this magic you do?
Taming the fire
Bending the earth
Making beauty from brute strength
Giving death a sharp edge
Creating in your mind and fire
Tools and everydays that
Humblefolk might live in peace
Making death and making life
With the same hammerblows
Are you a god or a man
Or the spirit of earth and fire
That men fear and love you, Smith







Martin Swords March 2009

Plastic Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a prayer
Along the monks path by the Glendasan
When all at once around a rocky bend
I saw a sight afloat to make me take a stand
A host of plastic bottles thrown away
Waving their caps and labels o’er the land
I often think in solitude so grand,
For all their cheap and handy ways
Discarded plastic bottles of today
Are simply just too big a price to pay
And then my heart with sorrow fills
A refuse sack with plastic rubbish daffodils


Martin Swords February 2009

Broad Casting

p
p
p
p

The Bishop and The Priest, The Teacher,
Doctor, Auctioneer,
these were the Grey Gods of the Grey Fifties
Even the Politician and the Merchant
had to pay Respect, to gain Respect.
Knowledge was broadcast at us
Like seed scattered on an empty field.
We were told the answers to the questions
we didn’t dare to ask.

Then the men in hornrim glasses spoke.
With no mention of God the new
black and white God spoke in every livingroom.
It told us what we ought to know,
it opened doors and shone light in the shadows
where the grey sins lay hidden by the Grey Gods.
We thought we were seeing.

The new Grey God lives among the stars.
In glorious colour it speaks,
it tells the news, it makes the news,
it tells us what it is we ought to know.
A black and white view in colour.
The old Grey Gods look on, green with envy.
The strings they pulled were never as long,
strong or well played as this brash messenger.
This full colour God in the sky.
We still think we’re thinking.
Nothing changes but the colour.



Martin Swords
Jan 2009


(“Broadcast” was originally an adjective and adverb, and meant literally “scattered widely”, particularly in the farming context of sowing seeds.)

I Stood in Line

November 4th 2008
United States Presidential Elections



I stood in line
To have my teeth examined
I stood in line
While my chains were locked
I stood in line
For a bowl of soup
I stood in line
With no poll tax
I stood in line
To board the bus
I stood in line
To face the water cannon
I stood in line
To speak, to be heard
I stood in line
To be listened to
This day,
I stood in line.
Proudly, stood in the line.




Martin Swords
Nov. 2008