A Poem for The New Year.

A poem for the New Year.

A little reflection on how

we treat the environment

and the animal kingdom.

Beyond this Point.

With not the wit to comprehend

His role in Nature's play.

Quite separate from

The scheme of things

He mastered all he could survey.

And thinking it a place that's strange

Of almost infinite resource

Imposed on what he can't admire

Some monument that's set in stone

To ignorance and sometimes worse

To those a plague, a curse.

Who'd measure what the profit yield

To burn the cattle in the field

And think there nothing much amiss

What kind of progress this?

Or use to ask what we have done

When fields and trees and rivers gone

And those who keep the common good

Have left a legacy that read

Caution you must be afraid

Beyond this Point

There's poison laid!

Photograph: Haymaking at the Porchfields Trim.

Scurlogstown Olympiad 2008.

A Poem for Christmas.

A poem for Christmas.

Journey's End.

Sleeper towns

Old faded signs.

Vapours trail

Cross rainbow skies.

Houses now

That watch the road

Peeping out

Through terraced rows.

Villages

And valleys though,

Steepled through

The hedgerows go.

Shadows traced

Across the glass.

Reflections and

The world goes past.

The road sweeps round

Another bend

Down crooked miles

To journey's end.

Photograph: Statue of Pope John Paul 11

NUI Maynooth Co. Kildare.

Stream of Consciousness

"Stream of Consciousness" by Austin Shiels is just that. A collection of poems that reflect on everything from philosophical leanings to love and war. A series of questions asked and then answered. Revelations. Political comment. The common thread holding them together is their focus. A sort of looking back from a high point, and if you would argue the toss... it is the love poems that stand out. Counterpoint though makes for interesting reflection.

Copies of the above from Michael Shiels.

Details at http://sherifffromnavan.blogspot.com
Or click on the link opposite.

Photo: Cover of book.

Boyne Berries (4)

Boyne Berries Four

I opened this at Orla Fay's "The Burial of Alice de Fir" and suspect that there is something I do not know, but this is a fine poem in a book that begins with a description of the Boyne and ends with Michael Farry's carefully crafted piece "The Once-Red Cart".

Like its predecessors this issue contains contributions from writers that are both local and from much further afield, (Bangladesh, Nigeria, The USA, Japan), and while Peter Goulding's work may help to redress the prejudice against rhyming poetry, the League of Ireland is another story.

Paul Egan touches on the subject of safe humour, or humourists, and the politically correct, getting to the heart of the matter you might say, while "A Monday Morning Fry" is a reminder that a man is best left to his breakfast! Cherry picking, well.... A muse ment...

Available at http://www.boynewriters.com/ , Antonia's/Trim Co. Meath, or click on the link opposite for details. Price €5

Photograph: Cover Design by Greg Hastings.

Short Trousers Days in Navan.

"Short Trousers Days in Navan" by Michael Sheils is perhaps one of the best selling local books published in the last few years. It opens with a frightening account of being trapped underground before harking back to more pleasant times and boyhood escapades along the Boyne and Connolly Avenue.

It introduces characters such as "Scut" and "Anchor" and "Tucker" and a host of others with the odd romantic interlude thrown in, and no rain. Though it wasn't all sunshine, stories of a schoolday incident, or incidents are included, which resulted in newspapers being withdrawn from the shops or even prevented from entering the town at all. Different times!

Days spent in Gormanston Camp or on duty with the FCA are also included and a Full Metal Jacket version of life in Catterick Camp before returning to Ireland and settling down. It ends with an account of "Old Navan" and a number of photographs and poems. More details can be found at http://sherifffromnavan.blogspot.com/ or click on the link opposite.

Book Launch/Fergie's Kilmessan.

The book "Excursions" was launched in Fergie's by Trim poet Tommy Murray.
With contributions from Willie G Hodgins, Paul Martin, Pat Duffy,
Isobel Maesto, Peggy Murphy, Kyrie Murray, John Byrne, and not
forgetting some fine singing from Sean Reilly. Available in outlets in
Navan, Trim, Kilmessan and others to follow. Also info on the Meath
Books website and Sheriff from Navan website or leave a message here.
Price €10 Euro and good reading!

Book Launch.

"Excursions" A book of 47 poems by Frank Murphy. To be launched in "Fergie's" of Kilmessan by Trim author and Poet, Mr Tommy Murray, on the 23rd of October 2008 at 8pm. Come early. Limited supply. And good reading!

The Book Cover is a photograph of St Peter and Paul Cathedral Newtown Trim Co.Meath.
Taken from across the Boyne.

Excursions

Excursions

A book of 47 poems ranging from the traditional to the modern A journey to more than a few odd places. On topics as diverse as war, humour, meaning, people and places with a few other things thrown in as well. Verse being the operable word. Launch dates to be announced.

Photograph: Book Cover.

Newtown Cathedral

taken from across the Boyne.

Omniscience

This is the last
poem from
"The Marginal line"

Some triumph
Of the intellect
While grazing
On his bone.

Subtotalled all
The arguments
On everything
That's known.

And following
The wake of those
Well versed
In such discourse.

Was so convinced
Of certainty.
He thought his
Thoughts
His own.

Photograph: Entrance to Tara churchyard.
Taken/Summer 2008.

It's had its season this

It's had its season this.

It's had its season this,

These borrowed days

Their gifts, teased out

Among the strands.

It's had its season this,

The covered ways

And rifts, that ripple

Down the ebb and flow

Of chance.

It's had its season this,

Its shaded greys

And drifts, the colours

On the carousel.

It's had its season this,

Its plays and shifts.

Dead pennies, yes,

It's had its season this.

Photograph: A view from the old graveyard

Hill of Skryne, looking toward

Tara. Summer 2008.

The Quest

The Quest

A wheel of fortune's

Circle trace

The reason why

Made subject to

This place,

The ages spent

Along the way.

The empires

Crumbling into dust

Their form to

Disarray.

The congregations

Winding down

Past columns wound

Soul purpose

To their quest.

While shadows

Danced

To covens round

And rule of thumb

Their guest

Made light of it,

And played till

You know everything.

Photograph: Bridge/The Ramparts

Navan. Spring 2008.

Discovery

A few poems about discovery

and such things?

Discovery

Damn these maps

their safe harbours.

This watch for yesterday.

Quartered and halved

as the wind dictates.

All talk these

arguements they plot.

Like hungry ghosts

that pitch and roll

their contradictions,

till they fall off

the earth.

They will lose

themselves.

Here be Dragons!

Photograph: The sea at Spanish Point.

Co. Clare. 1996.

Manoeuvers

Manoeuvers

All that spit

And polish

Bulling

Usual drills.

Old school ties

Talking up a storm,

The throwback,

Clinical smiles

The shades.

Catch you around

Sometime

The fine line

Sloping away,

Trailing arms

And coat tails

The official stamp.

Enough is enough.

Photograph: The River Boyne

Ramparts/Navan

Spring 2008.

Canon

Canon

Dot the commas

Cross the square

Murky as

An inkwell there.

Out beyond

The railroad tracks

They're pulling rabbits

Out of sacks.

Waiting for

Your guard to slip

And then they'll get

Another grip.

Moulding numbers

Into place

From arguements

In civic space.

They never miss

A single trick

The corporals and

Their walking sticks.

Photograph: Famine memorial

People's park.

Kells Co. Meath.

Summer 2007.

Comrades in Arms

Comrades in Arms


Nature playing the role
Of some devil may care
Dressed up for some other
Non local affair
With destiny settled
For certainty those
Who chose to accept
The conditions imposed
And practiced his art
With such consummate skill
That he only just made it
With time left to kill.

Photograph: Plaque outside
ledwidge Cottage
Slane County Meath.
Summer 2007.

Carpetbags

Carpetbags

Carpetbags

are different now.

Only a few loose ends

and the colours change.

In the marketplace

it's all up for grabs.

Dealers holding

a watching brief,

and the new order's in

hawking its wares.

Attache cases.

And the rules the same,

buy cheap, sell dear,

and no compartment now

for missing files,

not like the old ones.

Everything carefully stitched

except a few pockets

of resistance

taking a morality cheque

just for the present.

And everyone's waiting

for a White Christmas.

Photograph: Homeplace of Francis Ledwidge

Slane Co.Meath. Born 1887

Died France 1917.

Arms

Arms

Arms are everywhere

These days

Making offers

You can't refuse

Under the covers.

If you get in quick

You can make a killing

Casing the joints.

A stroke here

Or a stroke there

And it's all wrapped up,

One cut below the other

And if you're not careful

You could wake up beside

A horse's head.

Photograph: The Boyne along the Ramparts

in Navan. Spring/2008.

Poems about War.

The next few poems

touch lightly on the

subject of war.

A safe distance you

might say!

Correspondents.

I drove downtown

the night the Gulf War started,

and it was an eerie feeling.

There was nobody there.

Everyone had gone home

to watch the war on television.

Stocked up on foodstuffs.

Filled the bath full of water.

Crisscrossed the windows

with masking tape and waited,

listening to the World Service.

Until struck

by the similarity of language.

A book is a dangerous thing.

Photograph: The river Boyne at

Navan Co.Meath

Spring 2008.

Images Of Meath

"Images Of Meath" is the latest in a series of books on his native county by the Trim poet and author Tommy Murray.

Published by Nonsuch it opens with a chapter on the Boyne and its Bridges, for centuries some of the most important landmarks in the county, and certainly at odds with much of what surround them today. Mary Jo Gibbons observations on the quality of life and the living environment and the failure of those who protect them are so true.

The author's own recollection of days spent in Gormanston Camp in the fifties are included and turning the pages many of the names if not the faces will be familiar. The old Lee-Enfields ended up in a few Parish Halls.

Tobertynan woods outside Rathmolyon also feature and if you happen to be passing and have a handy pair of walking shoes then a visit to the beautiful shrine in the woods is a must. Leona Rennicks has a piece on Ardbraccan Church, while Christmas in the 40s and 50s is fondly remembered. Other items as well.

Available in Antonia's in Trim, Bookwise in Navan, also in Easons.

Details at http://meathbooks.blogspot.com/ or the Meath Writers' Website. Give it a Look!

Boyne Berries (3)

Boyne Berries (3)

The third issue of The Boyne Writers' Group literary magazine "Boyne Berries" was successfully launched at The Castle Arch hotel in Trim on thursday the 10th of April by the Chairman of Trim Town Council, Mr Ray Butler.

It includes contributions from many parts of the world as well as featuring some of the poetry of Brendan Carey Kinane, a member of the group and outright winner of the Boyle Arts festival in 2007. Other well known writers include Kevin Furey, Kevin Higgins, Marie MacSweeney and I'd better stop dropping names.

The decision to launch a literary magazine must have been something of a gamble, but one that has been successful to date in that it provides an outlet for local writers that would not otherwise exist. Added to that it "flies the flag" in some sense wherever it ends up.

Available in Antonia's Trim or Bookwise Navan. Details at http://www.boynewriters.com/

Worth a look!

The Marginal Line

The Marginal Line

The game has a fatal attraction

A joker that's playing for time

When you're holding black aces and eights

While you're playing for nickels and dimes.

And winning or losing depends

On what you can make on the deal

When the cards that will give you an edge

Are only the shreds of ideals.

While outside the neons are flashing

And girls hanging out with the boys

Reality's just an illusion

The light playing tricks with your eyes,

Contentment's a dangerous friend

When you live in the comfort zone

Where nothing is all that it seems

With uncertainty chance the unknown.

Though it's easy to lose your direction

And forget to watch out for the sign

As your life crosses over the points

Pass the stops on the Marginal Line.

Photograph: The river Blackwater flowing out

of Lough Ramor towards the Boyne

Summer 2007.

Barrows

Another poem

about poets

and poems

and other things.

Barrows

I cannot see the sense

why these machines

of verse dispense,

in barrowed rows

the obvious.

The skeleton of prose.

A corpse of rhyme

so still.

They have such need

for barrows,

to cart the words

uphill.

Photograph: On the west bank

of the River Shannon.

The church of

Saints Peter and Paul.

Taken about 1996.

Novel Ideas

This is a poem about poems
and poets and things!
Hope you enjoy!



Novel Ideas.



Footloose perhaps
Or fancy-free
The avant-garde
To you and me
Down some descending
Scale dispersed
While looking much
The worse for verse
Dispensed with form
Well I suppose
It doesn't lend
Itself to prose
And fashioned out
Their work of art
To somewhat lesser
Than the parts.

Photograph: A street scene
in Navan/2007

An Octave Higher

An Octave Higher

These endless reflections

That pale yellow colour

Languishing in its sick bed

Passing itself off as poetry

Dead from the neck down

Modern HuH!

Get up off your arse baby!

Let's Rock and Roll.

Photograph: The Tower at Mornington

Co. Meath/Summer 2007.

Bookworms

A poem for booklovers

everywhere.

~Bookworms~

Not your type at all

The sleeves rolled up

Jacket torn.

The cut and thrust

of words keeping

you amused for a

spell.

The blurb

Introductions

Something to get

Your teeth in.

The bit of rough

round the back

maybe,

The odd title bound.

And the foolscap

In the corner.

Photograph: Lough Ramor

Virginia Co.Cavan.

Farmageddon

A sad reflection

on our treatment

of animals.

Farmageddon

Because a pig

Had caught the flue

From eating meat

For me and you

To save what's past

Its sell by date

They made

The countryside

A grate.

Much better

If they'd vacinate

The Leprechauns

That run the state.

Photograph: Westminster from

Across the Thames.

Notice Given

A poem about

the beginning

Of the end.

For some?

Notice Given

The Y-Detector Vans

Were out last night

Checking for spectacles.

Drag Hunting

Some redundant

Feature

Out on a limb

Whose time was up

Hugging the curves.

Stretching

The best of them

Fit for anything

When the x-rays

Picked him up

Running on empty.

All over them he was

Genes in tatters

Privates biting

The hand that fed them.

A close shave

And a pair of high heels

And he could have made it

But they had him

In the end.

Photograph: The railway station at

Gormanston Co.Meath

Summer 2007.