Starborn

.


For Gráinne

Requiem for Baby Ronan




We are the stuff of stars.
A star for each of us
hides in a starry sky.
There’s one,
shooting, blazing,
brilliant for an instant,
and then gone.
Whose star is that,
so bright.
Starchild.
Starbourne.
Stark night.
Remember, thankful
to have seen that light.





Martin Swords 19 April 2003

Dark

Dark


Clock

Clock Tock

Tock Tick

Tick Tock

Tock Clock

Clock

Dong!

Dong!

Dong!

Still

Awake

Still Awake

Still Dark



Martin Swords
Wicklow Writers
Nov 2007

Down Among the Drunkies

.



It’s half past twelve
And all around
The Drunkies head for home
Some are walking
Some are talking
Some are better left alone
Who’re you lookin’ at…

Strangled laughs at jokes unfunny
Strangled bars of song
The Drunkies’ never stuck for money
The Craic keeps rolling on
Two more pints of Craic
And a small Craic with ice
And have one yourself…

To broken homes and broken wives
The Drunkies stagger back
Broken promises, broken noses
Bedroom opens, romance closes
Tears on a pillow in a bed of roses
Have you ’ere a cigarette...

But there’s nuttin’ heavy like
No Drugs None o’ that shit
Only the few pints like
And the Craic
Y’ know yourself…


Martin Swords

Wicklow Writers

Nov '07

Verdun, Return

.


A letter came today…
He is coming home.
How long has it been…
Three years…nearly four…
We remember the day
he left. We took
the pony and trap to
Gorman’s Bridge.
Not a real station,
a temporary halt to serve
the boys and men
who volunteered.
The sun shone, flags waved,
crowds cheered, and
the troops sang “Tipperary”.
Sweethearts cried and
kissed, and cried again.
Whistles blew, the train
belched black and sooty,
omen like, on that sad dark
day of false fervour.

Innocence left that day in
a second class compartment.
It’s a long long way, too
far, for King and Country,
for some that kissed that day
will never kiss again

Now he is coming home.
And we will kiss not once but
many times, a trainload of kisses.
For those with no return ticket



Martin Swords
May 2008
Wicklow Writers



Exercise, all given same first line and a choice of picture, in this case a steam train.

All the Boys

.



On back a bedroom door
A hook, a cap, untouched
This many year. The head
That wore it laughing
Lies in Messines
Under the green grass
Cut short back and sides
Like all the boys







Martin Swords
May 2008
Wicklow Writers

The Birches at Birkenau

.



‘Birkenau’ – the Birch Wood.
Gathered among the Beautiful Birches
outside Auschwitz – Birkenau
the Chosen People waited, hoping in vain.
Deliberately deceived, mothers, daughters,
Fathers, sons, frail, infirm, families, waited.
Deceived. Deceived in Life, in Death.
The chambers and the ovens full.
No Exodus.
Still waiting, waiting for us.

Lost treasures, among the roots
a button, a gold ring, a child’s buckle, survive.
Carved in birchbark a plea – ‘remember’,
cries out for the lost tribe
this grove once mocked.
The birches and the memory still grow, pointedly,
heavenward, screaming at God.
Golgotha – place of skulls.
Birkenau – place of birches.
Even the trees were corrupted.

Anniversary of Liberation of Auschwitz

March 2005
Martin Swords