All posts filed under: Spinnin’ Threads

Weaving and Web-making

‘the goldberg variations’ by Chris Murray

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scene 1: the goldberg variations   a kiosk at the end of a dark train in an abandoned travelyard: two shadowmen ravel orange round about their nothing much the magician in his moth coat appears in a vaudeville flourish. your piano balcony is high above the narrow stone street, your piano plays the rescued Goldberg, plays, and plays through its charred pages, – their black edges. it is the gothic quarter men move in their coffins.  their coffins are white with crosses on (red)  their coffins are on narrow shelves of (stone) aside an archivum (shades of gray):     a shady tree     an etched stone     a skull and crossbones Scene 2 : the goldberg variations     that indestructible piano! the undestroyed Goldberg is playing (again) wending its tones above a skatepark of bullet-glass (the melody plays, yes). I see that:  the romans left their life-size eggs and urns below the city  stitches pull and sting on the underside of my elbow (pain) softening the blow here and here there is no stitching …

‘Popping Candy’ and other poems by Sarah O’Connor

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Poemín   This poem Will be Exquisitely short   And   Dinkily dedicated To you.   Popularity, Personified   Smugness was her scarf, Inked pinkly, cerisely, She stroked it smugly. Smugness was her scarf.   Idleness was her chignon, Gleaming, burnished, shiny She fondled it idly. Idleness was her chignon.   Cuteness was her weapon, Trigger fingered, ready, She cocked it cutely. Cuteness was her weapon.   Blandness was her boyfriend, Broad-shouldered, dreamy, She loved blandly. Blandness was her boyfriend.   For Heaney   The sorrow’s mine and yours. It’s all of ours. We shake our heads. Now, when we want words, We will rifle and riffle Through pages printed. We will thumb-skim his volumes. We will become accustomed, And forget to mourn, as we do today, For his bits of the world welded to Bits of the meaning of the world. With those new silvered weldings, Hand-soldered together by him, Scudding from him to us. We will miss his missiles of insight.   Tír na nÓg   I saw Tír na nÓg For the …

The Myth and Memory Of Eavan Boland’s Latest Poems by J P O’Malley

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I do not often recommend newspaper articles on Irish poetry, but I am making an exception in the case of The Examiner’s review of Eavan Boland’s latest book New and Selected Poems Eavan Boland (Carcanet). J P O’Malley offers an extensive review, some illuminating video links, and a preview of his upcoming interview with Boland at The Boogaloo (London) in this article. ‘The heroic narrative that the founding fathers of the State attempted to make a universal truth is also something that Boland’s poetry has challenged consistently. Lest we forget, the birth of the Irish nationalist myth was forged initially through poetry, which unapologetically glorified violence ‘ (Examiner) It was a similar situation in the visual arts where censorship was prevalent and the original blasphemy laws (we updated them again in 2010) were used to suppress arts, most notoriously the work of Charles Rouault. We can examine how publications were seized and often censored for crimes like obscenity. The fact that there existed before Boland an entire suppressed narrative, a body of literature by women poets, should not surprise us, although it continues to …

Mary Cecil’s Rathlin Island poems

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Adagio for Strings   My heart that soared and climbed To other realms of fantasy That longs to find the answers To everything   To dream those endless dreams To drift in waves of oceans Of oneness complete And really know   In pools of beautiful thought Transport my soul Where heaven will be And let me be   © Mary Cecil   The Golden Hare   Where wild flowers cling And heather sweetly grows The magic hare reclines With fur of glowing gold   His spirit of quiet magnificence In lands of legends born Where unicorns are dreamt of And fairies sport in human form   To catch a fleeting glimpse Against the burning sky A moment in a lifetime A flash of mystery goes by   Where came his golden sheen That gift from other realms To add a glowing wonder Hidden in the ferns   So swift he flees With graceful lops he leaps Transporting us to mystical lands To dream of when we sleep   © Mary Cecil Rathlin Island . …

‘leave this death alone’ by Candi V. Auchterlonie

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purple blue thistle   ghosts/ghosting mouths they’re pulling purple blue thistle/our heads prickle their grey thumbs. the un-holdable bouquet/clamped with their veil of see through teeth blood is not blood it is a shadow veining the natural light that our eyes fail to adjust to and our glossy mouths fail to lipsynch the weeded purply hill when we speak between that strained speech   purple blue thistle is © Candi V. Auchterlonie   lookers stone looking glass/under glass eye stares they become lazy moons/but try to catch these petaled fliers with your hands, just try, they’re slippery mints tonguing fate. my house is plagued with the secret of mint moths and they’ve begun to eat the hearts out from all of my best coats.   lookers stone is © Candi V. Auchterlonie   tearing cotton from your breast poems from grand static/stasis that hurts with its stained whiteness.   tearing cotton from your breast is © Candi V. Auchterlonie   the flood of man   the tall-tall creek/creeps into your backyard. your very own backyard/and you flood a river into the …