AREN'T POETS GAS ALTOGETHER!

 THE SNIB

A fellow poet once conversed with me

about opening a door, telling me

how to open a certain door

after I had given a reading

at the Cork Spring Poetry Festival.

He went to great lengths to tell me

about the catch in the snib,

an Irish Oxford poet who ought

to know the art of conversation

but I think he overdid it.

I suppose it was his way

of being helpful: not wanting

to be poetically helpful in terms

of my career advancement,

he told me about the catch in the snib

of the door I was about to go through,

the door of my exit from the lounge

of the Long Valley in Winthrop Street

towards the closest toilet in the pub.

At least he was expecting me to return

and not wishing me to be on my way

because I was merely on my way

to the bathroom. But boy did he go

to great lengths explaining the catch in the snib!

He could have explained to me the catch

in the snib of getting an Oxford reading

or the catch in the snib of a reading tour

in the Ivy League Colleges but instead

he explained the catch in the snib

of the door on the way to the Jakes

from the Long Valley Lounge in Cork,

and he was a Cork Poet himself

who lectured in Oxford and could 

have invited me to give a reading 

in Oxford University but instead

he told me about the catch in the snib

of the door on the way to a WC.

Perhaps it was meant as a metaphor

for my excluded state,

an exhortation to wise up.

And indeed, reflecting afterwards 

on the intensity of his admonishments

concerning the importance of knowing

about the catch in the snib 

of the door that led to the Long Valley Gents,

I wondered was it a coded message

somewhat along the following lines:

You need to find a bogus mode of discourse

That deflects things. Tell it slant.

The slanter the better. Whatever you say

Say nothing. Well of course you have

to say something, but don’t be a dipstick.

The snib on the door of Oxford University

is particularly difficult. Always was.

Begin with the snib on the door that leads to the Jakes

 from the Lounge of the Long Valley Pub

and work your way up from there.

COPYRIGHT © CIARAN O'DRISCOLL 2024

POEM REMEMBERING A COLLAPSED LUNG

 

MY POST-OP CASE

For days I carried about

A case containing a whirlpool

When I exercised my battered frame

Walking up and down

The cardiac recovery ward.

Inspectors came at evening

To observe the swirling liquid.

Well, is it slowing down or not?

I asked when one of them

Had stared for far too long

At my body’s agitated humours.

But they found it hard to call,

Like watchers for the shape

Of Proteus in the waves

That tumbled on Grecian shores.

© CIARAN O'DRISCOLL 2023

KNUTE SKINNER POET AND HUMANE SPIRIT, RIP

 

QUEUING

(i.m. Knute Skinner)

Oh yes, there is queuing beyond the grave

And sometimes it spills over to this side.

Take the example of Knute Skinner, poet,

Whose voice was stolen by a stroke and who

For two years queued in silence, not quite gone

Beyond the world but inching onwards. Once                                                 

I published a piece of his about a driver

Stalled in the top spot of a traffic queue,

But yesterday his family, friends and neighbours,

Assembling in a tumbled Clare graveyard,

Saluted him for getting the green light.

O'Brien's Tower, Cliffs of Moher

Poem © Ciaran O'Driscoll 2023

MY SOUTHWORD POETRY PODCAST

 

ABOVE IS A SOUNDBITE OF MY SOUTHWORD POETRY PODCAST, IN WHICH I DISCUSS MY POETRY AND READ SIX POEMS FROM MY MOST RECENT COLLECTION, ANGEL HOUR, PUBLISHED BY SURVISION BOOKS 2021.

CONTRARY TO THE PERCEPTION IN SOME QUARTERS THAT I AM SOME KIND OF RECLUSE, I AM AVAILABLE FOR READINGS, DISCUSSIONS OF POETRY, INTERVIEWS ETC, BOTH IN IRELAND AND GLOBALLY. I HOPE THAT BY LISTENING TO MY SOUTHWORD POETRY PODCAST YOU WILL FIND ME BOTH FORTHCOMING AND OF INTEREST.

THE PODCAST IS AVAILABLE ON MOST SITES, APPLE, SPOTIFY, BUZZSPROUT ETC ETC.

GOOGLING ."SOUTHWORD POETRY PODCASTS" SHOULD GET YOU IN.

YOU MAY CONTACT ME BELOW AT "COMMENT" OR THROUGH MY MEMBERSHIP OF AOSDÁNA, VIA THE IRISH ARTS COUNCIL/ AN CHOMHAIRLE EALAÍON, TELEPHONE +353 1 618 0200, OR EMAIL AOSDANA@ARTSCOUNCIL.IE

A BOOK COVER BY DAVID LILBURN (RIP)

 Below is the cover of my poetry collection The Old Women of Magione (1997) designed by the late David Lilburn. I am currently writing an essay for an Arts Council Blog (related to their 70th Birthday Celebrations) on my various collaborations with this brilliant artist, untimely gone from us.

A POEM FOR MY GRANDSON, OSCAR, NOW 16 MONTHS OLD

 

GRANDSON

(for Oscar)

I sit on the sofa beside

My one-year-old grandson

Watching midsummer showers

Speckle the window pane

His warm hand in mine

I think of Kavanagh’s poem

‘Every old man I see’

And know I’m one of them

I show my face on the mobile

To the offspring of my son

And then show him his own.

He slips my hand and is gone

Taking me through the rigours

of a mad merry-go-round

He’s a yacht out on the bay

I’m a hulk that’s run aground

But the foc’s’le of the spirit

on the wreckage of my hope 

still boasts a live transmitter

towards which my fingers grope

And from perdition’s shell

Till the channel disconnects

I’ll sing him songs of culture

and its enlightened texts.

Copyright Ciaran O'Driscoll 2022 

LENDING HANDS IN LISBON

LENDING HANDS IN LISBON

"The duty of a writer is to remind us that we will die.

And that we aren't dead yet." Solmaz Sharif

I fell with my chair outside A Brasileira,

slumped to flagstones as it tipped a ledge

beside the coffee shop frequented by

Fernando Pessoa. A woman near me

was sipping a clear drink I thought was schnapps

until she told me later it was port.

As for Pessoa, he sat there impassive

under his trilby, taking nothing in.

  

But others reached out to lever me from 

my prone position: half-a-dozen hands

descended towards me in slow motion, faces

full of solicitude looked down on me. 

A voice called Gently, gently, lift him gently. 

Out of nowhere, a doctor declared himself, 

inspected the wrist which bore my tumble’s brunt,

said I was fine and recommended ice.

I felt well enough to finish my brioche

despite some pain and discombobulation,

but I thought it churlish of Pessoa

to sit there dandily indifferent,

a simulacrum, while a fellow poet

plummeted on a ledge-forsaking chair

to possible perdition from the platform

I visited in portly pilgrimage.

It was mid-morning. Not having touched a drop,

even of clear port, I was clear-headed

enough to catch Pessoa’s quiet response

to my hasty umbrage at his disregard:

Beaten in bronze and far beyond the year

of grace I was given to ghost through Lisbon, 

I, too, would have liked to lend you a hand.

My dilemma was, and remains, that I am dead.

© Ciaran O'Driscoll 2022