Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013)

There will be countless words written and spoken about the passing of the poet Seamus Heaney. When I heard the news I immediately reached for my copy of his collection Opened Ground: Poems 1966 - 1996. 

First thoughts are often best thoughts, and so my tribute to this fine poet is here:

In Opened Ground 

The folded tear of paper
white and blank as sky
between the sheets
of Opened Ground

I must have placed it there
to mark some verse
a special place
where words intended much

more than they said
as words are like to do
and if you ask me
for those words

then I will say to you
this is The Grauballe Man

Grauballe Man image used with due acknowledgement
and grateful thanks to Malene Thyssen (Wiki Commons)

View from the Merc

or Under the Old Sky Lantern

men sharing booze

look darling 

 . . . there's one 

. . . over there 
under the lamp

 on the corner

you might wind the windows up Henry 

one of the unproductive 

 (the permanently sozzled) 

and look
in the shadows

behind him's another 

you could drive a bit faster now Henry

. . . both well oiled 

they'll be turning in 
soon

. . . to sleep it off 
under the bridge 

you could put some music on Henry

and darling look

another one 

      . . .  over there in the bookshop doorway

(slackjawed sniveller)

and beside him another

(squint eyed slinger of snot)

one can never find a policeman when one wants one

and look darling

      over there 
. . . by those waste bins

(splay mouthed smoker of sotweed)

o how odious his ode 

one more for a night in the slammer

and all at the taxpayer's expense  (both together)  and all at the taxpayer's expense 

Red Lines and White House

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief the people march. 
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march: Where to? What next?

'The People will Live On' - Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)  

The 

President and the President's men

have drawn a Red Line

and someone has crossed it 

with chemical death 

and soon 

they'll be punished 

or so we've been told. 

Let
someone now ask 

the President's men 

about their nation's weapons

and those chemical deaths  

from depleted uranium 

and agent of orange

(once even plutonium)

and nobody 

drawing there a red line

on behalf of the babies 

and children

and those generations 

of victims

affected. Perhaps the press 

in the House 

and the President's men 

don't want us to focus 

too closely 

on them . . . 

It goes without saying, or it should do, that the civilized way forward, if any progress is ever going to be made in these matters, is to arrest those suspected of being responsible for the latest atrocity, and this may include the manufacturers and distributors of such chemical weapons,  and to deliver all these people to an appropriate court of justice and there present the evidence. Russia and the USA should now work together to achieve this end. It won't be easy. But it is a beginning.

'Whistleblower' for a day!

My Secret Life 

as a child 

I suppose 

I was not quite

normal 

. . . 

Get your very own Charles Bukowski FBI formulary here. 

   Never heard of Henry Charles Bukowski Jr., the world's most legendary barfly bard? Then it's clearly time to read those files. 

we ain't got no money, honey, but we got rain 

Stephen Crane's creature in the desert

In the desert 
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, 'Is it good, friend?' 
'It is bitter - bitter,' he answered.

'But I like it
'Because it is bitter,
'And because it is my heart.'

Stephen Crane 

( 1871 - 1900)

Stephen Crane, the son of a Methodist minister, was born in New Jersey. As he grew up he became aware of the irrelevance of his parents' religion in his life. At Syracuse University he spent his time playing baseball and engaging in social activities. 

Following dismissal from his job as a newspaper reporter for writing too sympathetically about a workers' strike he moved to New York's poverty stricken Bowery district where he met Hamlin Garland and W D Howells who were to influence his work. It was there that he wrote his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, which had to be self-published as no publisher would touch it. He is best known for The Red Badge of Courage the story of the effect of battle on one raw recruit in the American Civil War. 

In 1896 Crane joined a group of filibusterers going to Cuba to aid the revolutionaries. Crane was shipwrecked and spent 27 hours at sea in a small boat with 3 other men. His short story The Open Boat is an account of the fear, courage and endurance of this group. 

In 1897 he travelled to Greece and reported on the Greco-Turkish war. He lived in England and was friendly with Joseph Conrad and Henry James. 

In deteriorating health, following his reporting of the Spanish-American war from Cuba he returned to England and subsequently travelled  to Germany in the hope of finding a cure for his tuberculosis. It was there that he died, aged only 28, in June 1900. Despite his success as a novelist and a war correspondent Crane's preferred medium was poetry which he saw as a fuller form of his philosophy. 

Stephen Crane's man pursuing horizon

I saw a man pursuing the horizon,
Round and round they sped,
I was disturbed by this,
I accosted the man.
'It is futile,' I said, 
'You can never . . . ' 
'You lie,' he cried,
And ran on.

Stephen Crane 

(1871 - 1900) 

Stephen Crane on ranging men in rows

Once there came a man 
Who said 
'Range me all men of the world in rows.'
And instantly
There was terrific clamor among the people
Against being ranged in rows,
There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
It endured for ages;
And blood was shed 
By those who would not stand in rows,
And by those who pined to stand in rows.
Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
And those who stayed in bloody scuffle 
Knew not the great simplicity. 

Stephen Crane 

(1871 - 1900) 

To the Alm

the people 
fetched up their musical instruments 
and played them 

all day . . . 

an alpine horn 

of unique splendour 

. . . was played with passion

there was a man 
with a dog 
. . . and the dog's name 

was Amadeus 

 with her back to the music  
a woman alone 
in the crowd with her  thoughts 

. . . and her bottle 

of beer

many remained 

when the sun had gone down

 it could be 

some of them 

stayed there 

all night . . . 

one 
grizzly tale 

did the rounds 

how soldiers 
machine-gunned 300 pigs

LSO - Long-eared Sheep Orchestra

this musical summer

Long-eared Sheep Orchestra 

with random bells (aver vasta)

'Concert in an Alpine Wood'

You cannot see the bells clearly in this photo. There were 40 or 50 performers in the LSO but on my approach many decamped (later to regroup). The music they play is very soothing and like the tinkling of a mountain stream. It is particularly beautiful when played outdoors, in this case on a mountainside, on a summer afternoon. I suspect the LSO would not perform so well in a concert hall.

The current silence is due to the sheep not being able to move. I recall Alfred Brendel saying that silence is a vital ingredient of music too. So . . . all is okay.

Under Cardboard Towers Bridge

the 

mood 

in which 

the poem speaks 

is on an instant open 

for the words 

come from the street 

as spoken there 

by workless men 

with hands now tied 

to useless tasks 

"one time 

we were the salt of earth

but now we are its jerks"

says one  

"and slaves 

to bankers interest" 

someone laughs 

beside a box 

to which another 

swift replies:  

"we built a bank 

we built the bank 

and now that bank

 it owns us"

Books

a search for good words 

 where books are opened and closed

in the church bazaar