Kathleen’s Child by Martin Swords

 

All a Wonder

 

At seven, all a wonder.

The boy with his Aunt Kathleen

snug in bed, stone hot water

bottle in its blanket, keeping

October frost outside.

 

Streetlight shines through net curtains

casting paisley patterns on the wall.

Moving.  Changing with the breeze,

their own picture show.

 

Talking about the big wide world.

Tales of the Galapagos.

Exploring Easter Island

and the Pyramids.

He knew the Orinoco and the Nile.

Wide eyed wonders she told

from borrowed library books

 

Eyes wide opened never closed.

 

Thirty years later she told him

She was his mother.

 

It made sense.

 

 

 

Martin Swords June 2002

Kathleen’s Child

Greetings, I’m back, sorry to have been away so long

Greetings Friends, Poets and other enthusiasts, here I am back with something of an experiment. I work closely with a local Arts Group -Glendalough Arts Network – look it up.

I put together a series of Poems and Stories called Kathleen’s Child, about my growing up in Ireland.

I called it Kathleen’s Child – a collection of Poems, and Things That Should Have Been Said. By Martin Swords.

We then turned it into a video presentation using family photos and other pictures to bring it all alive.

I think it’s good, and it was well received when I presented it at the Arts Network’s Fireside Sessions. You don’t have to be Irish to get it – but it helps if you know something of Irish Life and changing times in Ireland.

So here it is, enjoy, and say Hello back

http://glendaloughartsnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/video-for-kathleens-child/

Perhaps it will inspire other Poets and Writers to record their views, memories and treasured recollections in this way for others to share.

Martin Swords

Glendalough Suite

Derrybawn

Hill of the white oak grove,
beloved of Nelson’s fleet.
Victory left the valley folk burning faggots.

Lugduff & Poulaneass

Black Hole Mountain Brook,
father of the two lakes.
Powerful force,
a torrent in streams clothing.
Speaks to us in splashes now
of the ice that spawned it.

Spink

Master view of lakes and valley,
Treacherous pointed rock.
luring unwary travelers
to a sloping edge too far

Tonlegee

Ton Le Gaoithe, ‘Back To the Wind’.
Always the wind, from every direction.
Many an Ice Age since you were warm.
many the bitter blast a Phog Do Thon.

Camaderry

The Pass of the Oak Wood,
nobly named in ages past
before the rape for ships and mineshafts

Brockagh

Once a village,
proud, hardwon, hardmade.
Now even Broc himself
finds life hard on this bare and barren rock

Glendalough

Magic mystic valley cradled in its mountain arms

Martin Swords January 2012

Venetian Delights

Tags

Childhood, Memory, Taste

The taste of childhood.
My childhood.
Venetian Delights were treats
if you were good.
Rich luxurious deep pots
of pastry with cream, jam
and custard filling, topped
off with a pink sweet icing
covering a bump of vanilla cream.
What had they to do with the
Watery City, Piazza San Marco
or Rialto, I had no idea.
I had never heard of Venetia.
But in Booterstown, Williamstown
Blackrock or grey Glasthule,
they were another world

They went the way of
Shortbread Wheels and Tipsy Cake,
some dreary cost-accountant
decided they were non-viable.
They were never meant
to be merely viable.
They were beautiful.

Martin Swords
August 2011
Wicklow Writers

Ten Cuckoos

Tags

Cuckoo, Life, Loss, Martin Swords, Mystery, nature, Seasons

Ten years I hear you call
in the heavy damp of evening
I listen now I know

The sense of seasons
when you’re due
and then, there, the first

This year. Late.
I know you hardly well
have read your cruel behavior

I shouldn’t like you, but, I
know enough of death to see
that life goes on, must,

At any cost. I forgive
your greedy growing
there are worse than you

There, again
ten years I listened for
and heard your call

I’ve never seen you once
perhaps in ten years more
if ever

Martin Swords
August 2011
Wicklow Writers

Morning Meeting at Tiglin

Tags

Deer, Glendalough, Martin Swords, Morning, nature, Tiglin, Wicklow

My eye in a halfglance
caught the shape of it,
hidden, yet different against
the broken forest ground

Small bodied, long necked
elegance, fine headed and upeared

Deer shaped, still, full
of deerness, we watched each other
from a distance
in the early morning mist

I wondered what shape
it thought I was

Stag or dangershaped

Martin Swords
July 2011
Wicklow Writers

Scene On Grafton Street

 

 

 

She walks her special

“I am beautiful” walk

 

Her hips punctuate

Her statement as she moves

 

The heels are hurting but

Worth the pelvic strut

 

She is in love

With each reflection

 

Fashion fabulous

Pavement peahen

 

Body beautiful

On the outside

 

 

 

Martin Swords

July 2011 Grafton Street

Wicklow writers

It’s Easter Island on the M50

It’s Easter Island on the M50

 

 

 

We’re running three lanes wide

hither thither on what’s presumed

important business of the God.

 

Carriages made from earth,

race on surfaces of earth,

fuelled by juice extracted from the earth.

 

An endless all consuming quest,

rushing, accumulating jewels,

supposedly to buy more earth.

 

In the Red Cow a man sits at a table,

his folded leg in front of him,

as he eats his foot.

 

In Inchicore a woman sells her child

and then herself, consuming

both her children and her self.

 

And still the race goes on, more jewels,

more juice, more earth, more earth.

It could be all a dream, but isn’t.

 

On Easter Island now it’s quiet.

Great stone heads look out on empty

sea and land. Only the faintest

echo remains, more wood, more wood.

 

 

Martin Swords

May 2011

Wicklow Writers

 

Brandenburg Whispers

Brandenburg Whispers

 

 

It hasn’t gone away.

At Brandenburg Tor, guides from many

Countries speak to many other countries

About past glories and desolation.

But they don’t speak to us, or for us

They don’t feel the almost-grasped glory like we do.

No. The stone columns speak to us.

 

 

Nearby the gate, just a few streets

But still too close to sacredness,

The Jewish Memory thing stands

Like coffins in a potters field.

Let them come.

Let them go.

It’s out of sight and out of mind.

Our minds.

 

 

On Kurfurstendamm we eat well.

We buy what we want. At any price.

We are entitled. We feel powerful,

We could be greater if we were left alone

To be ourselves.

And that which must not be mentioned,

Is what we mention when we talk.

Among ourselves.

Sometimes, often, it seems to us so close

“es war fast gelohnt”, almost.

 

 

 

Martin Swords

December 2010

Berlin

Impressions Gleaned from Watching and Listening in Berlin

Waves of Life

 

 

 

 

Beginning in an ejaculation of energy.

Helped by a firm hand of wind or a breaking berg

Starts a short and moving life,

Two weeks they say from Antarctica to Alaska.

 

Growing up, growing old carrying the seeds of chance.

The moon speaks to us, pulling our minds, our very

Molecules, fetching out our ebbing flowing spirit.

You wave. I wave. We live. We journey on.

 

Above Anchorage how will it be?

Reborn from a Glacier’s milky calf,

Rebounded from a wet rockface to return to the south,

Or spent on the sand like lovers,

Moving a few sand grains, dissipating life’s energy.

 

My feet drag heavy, I look up as from a trough.

Is that my Alaska just over the horizon?

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Swords

February 2011

Wicklow Writers

Dog Days

Tags

Dog Days, Poetry, Recession

 

 

 

 

 

The pleasure goes from ordinary things

That once were like oases in a desert day

The stolen time to read a favored poem

A treasure now not valued when

There’s nothing else to do

But play with poetries all day

These are the dog days of recession

When all the good’s been stolen

When all the little pleasures that

Were taken like thirsty sips

Are drowning

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Swords

Wicklow Writers

February 2011