Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
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Poems and general conversation from Irish poet Michael O'Dea. Born in Roscommon, living in Dublin. Poetry from Ireland.
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
3d ago
These walls, stone calligraphies
of almost six thousand years;
predating Sumerian cuneiform,
built on the tablet of geologic time;
pages stacked above the ocean,
stripes of the Céide cliffs
beneath the cover of bogland.
That book reopened,
retelling lives in Neolithic script,
a stone net thrown onto the land.
And now I think of Tom’s new walls,
the limestone boundaries of his fields;
how he has written his lines into this history;
how glorious they stand ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
6d ago
This BBC link, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-68816523, contains a compelling message and poem from Emi Mahmoud. We need to be careful, the media directs our attention, but there are other crises, some claiming more lives though not lines. Lives are of equal value everywhere; news media manages to subsume human lives to political interest.
Notable too in this interview, she underlines the importance of poetry in communicating human anguish.   ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
1w ago
A gap in the hedge
where briars are looping downward
under the weight of grape-like clusters
of fat juicy blackberries ‒
squelching cattle-trodden paths
lead onward to fresh, green, larder-like
half-acres of lush shining grass ‒
choked with cloud
and birdsong sweet with plenty,
among stirrings in the leaf-litter,
momentary alarms;
I step, sinking in wellingtons
in the dung-gummed earth,
into a triangular field
green as the previous,
as secluded within its sycamore,
blackthorn and elder confines.
I stop as I would passing into a new room
and know I can walk the whole country,
east to w ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
1w ago
Life Long
Still:
my once loved
is standing there
as though left out in the rain
and waiting to be brought in,
ever-present,
a hologram
at the end of the garden.
Still:
my once loved
is standing there
as though left out in the rain
and waiting to be brought in,
ever-present,
a hologram
at the end of the garden.
Still,
and the years have rolled,
I have held her there ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
2w ago
Inured to the inhumanity displayed in times of war, here is a horrific example of the depths we are capable of descending to. Historic it may be, but there is no real indication that anything has improved; the genes haven't changed, only the arenas in which our basest inclinations play out.
  ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
3w ago
Miley twerks,
Marilyn gathering in her dress,
a galaxy of stars gathered around Bradley,
a sailor kisses a woman in Times Square,
5 soldiers raise a flag at Iwo Jima,
Einstein sticks out his tongue,
a child face down dead on a Turkish beach ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
3w ago
Michelangelo might have carved
the wrinkles on his forehead,
veins on the backs of his hands,
the fingers slender in death,
knuckles, fingernails,
lids shut over spiritless eyes.
The rosary trickling down from
his fingers is an intrusion;
no renaissance here,
Dad is a statue now ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
3w ago
What you’ve never grasped
is your days are flying loose,
pages in the wind,
and you busy about filling them,
never catching them.
Happiness is sunlight
on the pages;
it flies with the days ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
1M ago
All of that twentieth century history
went in, piled up;
from childhood, it stacked:
the cold war, Bay of Pigs, coup d’etats,
dictators, famines, invasions,
Vietnam, Congo, Falklands, Belfast, Kosovo;
treaties, broken treaties, military exercises,
nuclear arsenals, on and on
and we got wise
and understood that nations are hungry
and savage;
there were always answers and we knew them
from a young age.
And the great page turned, twentieth to twenty first:
still they came: Darfur, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan,
invasions, piracy, terrorist attacks, revolutions
until we know nothing,
and the ..read more
Poetry and Miscellaneous Yap
1M ago
Trump's recent 'bloodbath' comment continues his pattern of being incendiary. This (not so delicately embedded in his speech-making) stoking of violence, the self-cultivated image of his own greatness, his demanding of loyalty to himself, the outrageous claims of his abilities to rid the world of ongoing problems, his narcissism are all so reminiscent of other dictators. Add that to his fondness of autocrats:
my question is how, with all the knowledge of history available to us, do we allow presidents, the people with the greatest potential to do damage, to act outside the checks and bal ..read more