Filleann An Feallaire Ar An bhFilíocht

I spent the afternoon out at the pier in Howth. The sun was shining. The seals were performing for the crowd, blubbering and snorting for fish, their big soulful eyes looking up my skirt. I bought some cherries at the market, I ordered a glass of wine with my dinner and spent an hour looking at it. I stopped off at a book sale and bought myself a copy of Pat Ingoldsby's Beautiful Cracked Eyes. I've only ever bought Pat's books from him, and for other people; I've always wished that someone would think to buy one for me. I got home, sat down, put on some music and cracked my book's spine.

God It's So Lovely

I am watching a gull walking
into the harbour shallows
at the edges of grey water
walking very slowly
with no hurry on him at all
the water deepening up around his legs
till a beautiful fusion of water and weight
floats him on it.
The sun comes out
and blinds silver lights across the tide.
The gull is moving one way.
The lights are going the other.

Pat Ingoldsby, East Pier, Howth, 16.40, 7-8-98

Poetry Cornered

William Butler Yeats

• In a fit of facetiousness, I chose as my sister's thesis title a line from Yeats' dirge, September 1913 (Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, it's with O'Leary in the grave). As it happens, Yeats was an alumni of the same institution (then The Metropolitan School of Art, now the National College of Art and Design).

• When I was a kid I had a map of Ireland complete with portraits of her literary heroes. Most of them were ancient and beardy looking (I had not, at that stage, developed my preference for hirsute men) but Wilde and Yeats looked young and presentable, so I used imagine them as my boyfriends (there were no teen magazines or pop idols in our house).

• His brother Jack was an expressionist painter, and a very fine one at that. Were I the boys' mother, he'd definitely have been my favourite.

• Apparently William was big into mysticism and the occult. WH Auden criticized this aspect of Yeats' work as the "deplorable spectacle of a grown man occupied with the mumbo-jumbo of magic and the nonsense of India." I copy and pasted that from Wikipedia, so it must be true.

• All of his Irish mysticism stuff bores and annoys me in equal measure - I find it pretentious and very difficult to identify with. I imagine he would probably find me pretentious and very difficult to identify with.

• He is somewhat of a posterboy for unrequited love - having followed Maud Gonne around like a lost puppy for 19 years he finally bedded her in 1908. Whatever he did that night, he made quite an impression: By January 1909, Gonne was sending Yeats letters praising the advantage given to artists who abstain from sex. She must have made a more favourable impression on him, however, as he proposed again to her (proposal #346, I think) and also proposed to her pubescent daughter. He was still rattling on about their one-nighter in A Man Young And Old almost 20 years later (which must have pleased his young wife George no end).
  

Blame Annie and Tim.

The Leafy With Love Banks Of The Grand Canal

Some Dodgy Oul Lad Hogging The Bench

The canal bank walk to work was so lovely this morning that I stopped a while and took a seat beside Paddy Kavanagh. Smoked a cigarette and sat there just thinking for a bit. It was nice. I was never crazy about Kavanagh's poetry (Paul Durcan and Dermot Bolger are more my style) but today it seemed to fit the morning.

For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.

Maybe next week I'll take a seat further down, on the bench that makes me smile every morning as I pass. Its inscription is not so grand, but the sentiment is no less poetic. The photo is courtesy of OneFor, who's a big fucking softie at heart.

Some Dodgy Young Lad Pouring His Heart Out

In Other News

Rua, the ginger eejit, has come up with some more truly touching poetry. I'd have bought his book for everyone this Christmas, had he written one.

A Poem So Fresh And New, Yahoo!

Two poems from Pat Ingoldsby's new collection Can I get in the bath? ("It's outrageous" he told me yesterday, grinning. "Absolutely fucking filthy").

Crucial Moments Leading Up To His Arrest

The man with the long sticky-out nose
pulled his trousers up so high
that he couldn't see where he was going
so he opened up his fly
and peeped out to have a look.


Me Hole

I have cried
and cried and cried
for the dreams
of you and me
that got destroyed
somewhere between
the excitement of hope
and the crash
of breaking futures.
Who dares wins!
Whoever
came up
with that
pearl of shite,
kindly go
and
fuck yourself.
Twice.

I hope that some day someone will buy one of his books from him to give to me.

Pat's Chat

I didn't get around to doing my Christmas shopping yesterday as planned, owing to the rain and the fact that I'm a lazy bitch when I want to be. I ventured out this morning though and managed to get about half of it done, which I think I deserve a medal for given the ferocity of the crowds on Dublin's streets. I was walking along Westmoreland St. laden with bags and ill humour when I saw Pat Ingoldsby sitting by the huge metal container inexplicably parked by the side of the road.

Pat's an Irish institution, a relic of my childhood. I love his poems, the humour and the humanity of them. Sometimes they make me feel very sad and worried for him. I've bought books from him a couple of times when he was having a bad day (I've never bought one in a shop). He was gruff and I was disappointed, which is funny as I don't expect any of the other authors I read to entertain me as I make a purchase. Today was a good day though, he greeted my hello with a beaming smile and chatted to me about his books. I asked him to write the dedication in Irish and asked him as Gaeilge, eliciting another smile. Tá Gaeilge álainn agat, a deir sé, Gaeilge ón chroí. I'd love to have stayed and talked with him for longer, maybe got him a cup of coffee and kept him company for a while. He has an extraordinary warmth and energy about him, an air of eccentricity and giddiness, and loneliness. I'd love to have stayed, but I didn't. I lacked the courage, afraid that I'd impose, or bore him. I regret it now; he's man enough to tell me to piss off home if he doesn't want me annoying him and who knows, he might have been gumming for a cup of coffee.

Tomorrow I'll post one of my favourite poems of Pat's. I'm too fuckin tired tonight though, after my interrupted night's sleep...

Still Shockingly and Inexplicably Single

To be dumped on your arse by someone you're not even seeing and you haven't told anyone about is an awful feeling. You've no legitimate cause to be upset and can't go looking for sympathy and ice cream because there was no relationship. But when something's been a pipe dream for a long time (for both parties - I haven't been subpoenaed for stalking or anything) losing it still leaves you gutted, and pretty fuckin' pissed off. I like the way Michael Davitt put it in his poem Poker*

Nach ceait mar atá
Ag deireadh an lá
Tar eis grá
Na gaoithe binbeach

D'imigh sí uait
Is d'fhag sí tú
Gan phunt
Gan tuiseal ginideach

*Apologies for the lack of punctuation, I can't remember how it goes. It was translated to English by Gabriel Fitzmaurice: Isn't it cat, my friend, at the day end, after love like a wind that's venomous, she's left and gone and here I am, flat broke, without a genitive.