What have I learned but Nothing Nothings Somethings about nothings like Heart is wild animal Wild animal is pilot. Life is absence much as presence, names, stones, the splitting of sticks missyous strewn across the holy scape like erratics. Cavern deep, rope narrow one day bow, next day arrow. Some verses will be supermarket queuing…
The Celtic Tiger, stone dead. Isn’t it awful, awful? She wandered onto the M6 Somewhere near Kinnegad, Into the brute smack Of a Lidl truck going west. The heft of headlines, snap rage. Isn’t it a real disgrace? Someone left the gate unlocked, Installed cheap low fences, Designed flimsy cages, And fired the nightwatchman. Question…
Us & Then (Exabyte) Billows of dust Thickened and dry Colour of rust Blotting the sky Comments flicker in the fallen night (A trillion stars in a trillion galaxies) Flickering, bickering, faraway old light of 1000000000000000000000000 stars Go on, get a good kick in now, and Feel the rush of a boot point scored A…
To watch from a distance the world settle in for its night from a bank high up under the Skye Road where I can make out comforting lights in windows cars in their driveways and the beam of a lighthouse all blink, blink, wait… blink, blink, wait… Somebody below is driving carefully along the low…
I am The car jolts and rocks along the track, as though dragged by chains to a chased beast. I am the beast. The indistinct greyed-over bogs and swollen rivers coming down the hills whish by the windows I am the window. Father is a good driver, but sometimes an angry driver, and now he…
Let’s Get Angry and Call it Like it is. Inflame inflame! There is not enough Fire in the game, Or teeth in the trough. Stoke, stoke! The peace of your pieces; Shake from the smoke, Sparks to the breezes. Whip, whip! Agenda from embers; Dare in the dip, To sip on the the cinders. Burn,…
Spring Fishing Am I in a trap? Did I build it myself? The punt bobs on the waves between Broochen and the point of Fournaugh This is no weather for fishing; no weather for anything bar the Seat next to the Stanley and the kettle hissing for tea And the steam of decades sunk in…
Máméan, Pass of the Birds According to legend, St. Patrick blessed Connemara from a well at the top of the pass, and slept there (“Leaba Padraic”=”Patrick’s bed”), though to my limited knowledge there was stuff going on there before that too. There is now a little chapel next to the well and mounds of stones…
The Glann road follows the western edge of Lough Corrib from Oughterard towards Maam, ending close to the foothills of the Maamturk mountains. The lake narrows towards its Northwestern corner, with peninsulas like the Hill of Doon coming within a few hundred metres of the opposite shore. The Ends of Glann A stonestrewn shore below…
Daffodils rising, raising yellow heads to bob in March winds. Driving from Aberdeen across a Scottish Motorway, Over the Irish sea in the belly of a ferry South from Belfast and west from Dublin West to Galway City and beyond, Until the road narrows to to an end by the lake Where grass still grows…
W.B. Yeats visited a public school in Waterford in 1926, and there, as an ageing man among the young children, his mind wanders, first to Maud Gonne, to youth, and in an unexpected way, to something universal and beautiful: Among School Children How can we know the dancer from the dance? The poem is an…
The smallest thing; flap of a finch’s wing Dart of a blackbird’s eye Rising of spring from buried roots with a cry Strange to be here again Late, behind schedule, delayed, out of time, Yet back at the beginning, where we met Busy but immobile The beat of your long-absent feathers Only memory’s furrows to…
An artist regrets having never committed Streets outside the curtains Draw me back A bad sketch of a hollow tune Hums above the others in the room For her, my vacant ruin. Waking in a strange old bed can be lonely Is this where all those veining streets lead? I might have said: my one,…
Do not forget me when the door clicks shut Let me linger and fidget as a breeze I would prefer to persist Like the smell of toast or coffee or Febreeze And my foregone exit resist The lake at its bloated winter zenith Broad boatless surface burying slowly in its creep The low jutting piers,…
Rainy Day in Renvyle Rain sweeps across the wide open, Clouds rolling in from the west, Tears from the sky set in motion Blown by a wind that won’t rest. Ceaseless the changes chase over, The shelterless landscape at speed. Soft underfoot grows the clover. Soft as a heart full of need. It’s hard to…
Sit, sit and be still. Douse that ragged brain in cold water. let it sting until you settle, finally awake. The preacher stands waiting at the gate. Is he coming or going, hearing or telling? With your finger raised to test the wind, you find a right you must defend. That sound? That is the…
In need of Distraction, Direction, Redemption. Stripped down, the workmanship laid bare, Twisted knuckles hang in the air. At the doorway, pause, freeze, statue-solid, Like you had never read and your ghost had just disappeared, And armies marched across your grave, And your molecules returned to the stars, Maybe complete, maybe lost beneath. Flipped out,…
[audio:http://donalkelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Huh.mp3|titles=Huh?]Huh? So a verse- Am G D (fingerpicked) then… G Bm C G as a chorus The verse and chorus don’t sit that well, not a totally natural transition, but it does sound ok. Then lyrics… I guess it’s a rest from ourselves. Must be a test to see what is real. I should have…
