Wicklow Lighthouse 3a.m.

Wicklow Lighthouse 3a.m.

“ ………. A deepening depression ….. heavy rain ……

………… poor visibility …… strong southerly winds ……

..............veering southwest.............................

………… building strong gale after midnight ………….. ”




Shine, steady light,
and bring them home
to Wicklow

Dear God, look out for Jim
and all the lads aboard the Sarah Ann,
struggling home against the wind
beyond the Arklow Sands

Shine steady, light,
and bring them home
to Wicklow

And all for what? Less
fish than ever, every time,
a box of crabs, a living? A
hundred hooks, a life, all on the line.

Shine strong now, light,
shine strong all night
and bring them home
to Wicklow

Your daughter Sarah, soon, I hope
will have a brother.
And they will need their Father
then, to love them, and their Mother.

Shine steady strong and surely
show their way
and bring them home
to Wicklow, safe, today.




“ ……….. reports are coming in …… fishing vessel …… no contact …

…………. sighted ….. approaching Wicklow harbour …………

…………. just after 3a.m. …………”




16 November 2005
Martin Swords

The Seven Birches

The Seven Birches




Seven Birches stand
On the right hand of the garden
Towering over house and sheep shed
Yet holding hands
Below the ground.
From Tiglin they came.
Picked and pulled as seven saplins
From the woods of Synge’s Glanmore.
Playboy, of the Western Woods.
Planted by Mervin, as he tells it
On a stormy day as dark as night.
When three storms, like three witches, met
And flashed and roared and spilled their spells of rain,
Macbethian, like three Weird Sisters, yet
Making beauty despite themselves
Not Birnan Wood, but Birchwood.
The Seven Birches still stand tall,
Now the sons of the seven show themselves,
Ready to make their stand
Whenever the witch’s storms return
To take the old and weak.
As they always do


Martin Swords Aug 2008

The Way of Kevin

The Way of Kevin




And then there was St. Kevin’s Way
The Way of Kevin, Tóchar Chaoimhín
In a Meditation Garden on a hill
below the chapel graveyard,
Suaimhneas Chaoimhín, the Tranquillity of Kevin
sings with the sound of water splashing.
A first Cuckoo calls on 4th of May
Tadpoles swim in the old stone
Baptism Font from Annamoe Church.


Are these Holy tadpoles in the Baptismal Font?
Or are they like the rest of us, struggling?
Is this their time, their place, their struggle?
Life is what’s Holy. Life is a struggle
whether in a Holy Water Font or
in the outstretched hand of a saint.
Struggle is the Prayer of Life.
Ask St. Kevin. Ask the Blackbird.
Ask the sons of the sons of the Blackbird.
Ask them the way.




Inspired by Seamus Heaney’s Poem
St Kevin and the Blackbird
And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird





Martin Swords
May 6th 2008

A Walk In The Woods With Robert Frost

A Walk In The Woods With Robert Frost






Overcast but warm,
The day dry, unusually.
Walking the woods with the dogs
As many times before.
Lucy and Tiggy, away in the rough dark deepwood,
Yipping with the scent of deer, excited.
Ruby, river scrambling, biting
At the bogwater, wagging her tail,
From the shoulders back



Along the old familiar track into
The clearing where the roads diverge.
I stopped and stood. Which way to go?
Think of another Poet, and roads not taken.
Yes, I’ve been here before. This way I came.
That way I saw a squirrel once.
And down that way a badger.
Straight on, the Mill Pond where ducks dabble.
Behind me then a stag, stares my way, and
Startled, slips into the wood.
I think again of Robert Frost and look a different way.
I stand a while. I turn, retrace my steps, recall, relive,
I’ll write this down, and this will be
The road I’ve taken.






Martin Swords June ‘07

A Tree Has Fallen

A Tree Has Fallen


i.m. Tommy Nolan 1940-2008


In a silent belfry
An old bell.
From the sea at Wicklow
A new rope.
In the graveyard
A new sound.
The Tolling Bell
Calls loud
To the quiet hush
Of the slow walk.
Ask not for whom,
It tolls for Tommy Nolan.

Back from the valley
Forest hills,
Derrybawn,
Lugduff, Camaderry,
Brockagh,
The toll returns,
The woodland wakes
A sturdy forester.
A tree has fallen,
Back to the earth.
Ring on Toll.
Echo Thanks.


Martin Swords August 2008

The Shallowman

The Shallowman



The Shallowman has friends
he counts as assets,
for favors he might need
from time to time.
He lists their skills and
contacts in his busy greedy mind.
He’ll call them when he needs them
when next he’s in a bind.

The Shallowman is jovial and great fun.
With tales, and yarns
he’ll entertain the crowd
Backslapping, and backstabbing
he’ll amuse and castigate all round
They’ll laugh,
but not laugh with him.
The Shallowman can’t read their hollow sound.

The Shallowman is lonely at the end
for all the hale and hearty cheer is false.
The friends when stripped of favours
don’t deserve a second thought
the Shallowman can’t see their worth
when they’ve nothing more to offer only
friendship, and friendship by itself
can’t satisfy his lonely shallow want.



MARTIN SWORDS, JUNE 1999

Bob Dylan,and me.

Bob Dylan, and me.


I know Bob Dylan well.
Grew up with him,
We all did.
He was the voice
We didn’t have.
Said the words
We didn’t know to say.
Such words.
He saw and sang
Of things we saw
Yet wouldn’t speak about.
Where we were awkward,
He was talkin’ out.

For forty years
I’ve looked up,
Listened up, to him.
Now changed, aged, yet
Both forever young,
I’m glad we grew together
In interesting changing times.
We never met,
But it’s alright.
We spoke.
We played our parts.
He needed me to listen all along.
The singer sings
So others hear the song.

Martin Swords, June 2003

Some Times

Some Times

Sometimes
Time is measured
In Christmas decorations
Minute baubles and second
Sets of lights. A treefull.
Hours in attics reaching the
Back wall where the good stuff is.
Silver Birds in black tissue paper
not to be used. They were Nana’s.
The Crib in the cardboard held by
Five years’ sticky tape
The old figures with the three legged
Donkey and the chewed-up
Baby Jesus in the manger.
Meg, had left her mark.

This yearly task,
The Getting Down,
The Putting Up,
The Taking Down,
The Putting Away Again
Flimsy boxes, treasured memories.

Sometimes
At The Putting Away,
Thoughts come unbidden
Of the next Getting Down.


Martin Swords 15 January 2008

Written at 263c Vale de Pinta Lagoa Portugal

A View at Rheinfall

A View at Rheinfall






Be happy. Don’t be
Concerned with correct.
Be happy. Be easy.
Give happy. And receive.

Look at the water rushing.
Vibrant, pounding passion.
Is it moving faster?
Is this the river youth?

Life is Rheinfalling away,
Soon there will be little time.
Soon we will be far downstream,
Drifting on the quiet waters

Like two Autumn leafs
Far beyond the falls.
Happy, remembering
The Rheinfalls of our life







Martin and Jacinta
Rheinfall
Flueringen
Schaffhausen
3 Sept. 2007

Sarah's Saturday

Sarah’s Saturday


Like an egg, she felt complete, enclosed,
Protected, full of promise,
And yet, Sarah wondered, and yet.
Alive, alert, attractive, alone,
She had personality, sex appeal.
Her sparkly lovely eyes, her Snow
White red wet lips attracted.
There was a man at the office once,
Told her so, but he was married.
She was full of figure and full of life,
Two days short of thirty seven
On yet another Saturday night
She curled up comfy watching telly
In her cosy little room
“Her cosy little womb” she called it,
Wondering if any man would enter,
If anything would develop.



Martin Swords
Prompt Poems
“Egg”

Feb 2008

The Land of Longing

The Land of Longing



Welcome to the land
of the Frothy Frappuccino
Filet Mignon, Lobster Burgers
and Coffee that comes every
which way but coffee

The best in America seemed
to come from somewhere else
Paris France, London England,
Belgium Belgium, carrying its
Continental Chic to this Big
Brash confident yet
uncertain country

Only the polished clock in
the local rail station, the
red bonneted shiny chromed
sixteen wheeler on the
interstate, and Grand Central
spoke to me in American.
They said “Howdy”.







Martin Swords June 2008




Random and possibly unfair impressions
from a visit to Connecticut and New York,
in the head for years and only now prompted
onto paper in Starbucks, Dundrum Shopping
Centre, triggered by noticing the spelling of
Frappuccino.

Strange.

This Place

.




This is the place
Where words and wisdom
Grow on trees
Rich ripe ready words
Falling on paper
Rhythms too are there
On branches, waving
In the wind
And thought bunches,
Blossoming, scent
The air in this place
There are hills to climb
And wonder what’s behind,
In this place
Water too is there,
Dripping, dripping
Slow, worrying a word
Into a rock








Martin Swords Oct. 2007

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