Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Filíocht Nua: New Poetry

1998; Philosophy Documentation Center; Volume: 2; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/nhr.1998.a926589

1534-5815

Gerald Dawe,

Island Studies and Pacific Affairs

Gerald Dawe Filiocht Nua: New Poetry THE SHOWING OF THE SEA Vertigo, To" Head I pace behind you both and feel the earth's steady incline so that when you keep walking, higher and higher, I want to sit with my back square against the flipped horizon; the riptide. Windfalt Inishbofin for John Carlos Alongside the foreshore I take from the sea muskets, boxes of butter, timber for house-building, a lopsided mine and shark's fin; vestments, the last landlord's swollen ledgers. Also the lines of this poem. NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW /IRIS EIREANNACH NUA, 2:1 (SPRING/EARRACH, 1998), 62-67 Filiocht Nua: New Poetry PROMISES To wake like this in the middle of the night and hear a bird, I'm not sure which, in solo run; then pad down to the kitchen and notice the blue light of the moon give way to the dawn, is OK too. In private gardens and apartment blocks they are already up and showered. From Valhalla, Greenfields, Haven, the gates remain open; gravel spits out from under the twisted wheel. That flash of thigh at the downstairs' front window when I get into the carher hair bells and she has a quick look at what kind of day it promises to be. A chilly light takes hold of clothes, lotions, little bottles of perfume. By chance, too, a necklace is hanging there. Filiocht Nua: New Poetry THE VISIBLE WORLD I The Troubles Saturday morning-the bit that's left over from the night before, and there are still a few knocking about. In a while, the first bus and all those who work a six-day-week will shut doors on their man or woman, the kids, monk's bench, ascending stairs, and they will hear, or think they hear, a voice crying about love, troubled love, even at this time of day. II 1958 , It was in the waiting room where trolley-buses merged with the stink of a pub just opened, that I looked out to the overgrown cemetery with tombs lodged in its walls. I remember the queue of men, cheeks flushed with racking coughs, women with children who talked under bated breath, cardigans over their good blouses, the: nylon cuffing on a high-heel shoe. Filiocht Nua: New Poetry III The Break-up Riding up front in the Removals van was like being in the Army tank I was lifted into one Open Day-our furniture stacked in the back. I was so high up I didn't notice the knocks as we took this blind comer and that bad bend, so when we finally arrived and the light poured in the barn-like doors, I half expected birds to come tearing out of the tables and teapots like screaming bats. IV Charades His grandmother's sister's daughter is over and in the front room with the adults-the sofa pushed back, trays with drinks, the fire bums brightly, peals oflaughter-the boy steps forward: ''A song. Three words. Beginning with ... ;' and it goes on for ages until a voice inside hisses show-off Filiocht Nua: New Poetry V The Grove The park railings were bent just enough so you could get your head through, then the rest. It was like slipping a noose. The same feeling as walking up the gangway whose wooden slats showed a foot of water away down between the ship and quayside. Or the beautiful girl in the circus who fell from the highwire and is falling still-a sycamore seed spinning away out of control to almost reach the blue, untouchable blue, of the lough. VI Illuminations When I saw the man with an inflatable globe of the world carrying it like a football I immediately thought about the geography room at Orangefield. We were watching a film on Alaskan oil, or it could have been Peruvian Indiansbears fishing, gold ingots--and the dumb backs of our heads lit from within the same beam of dusty light. 66 Filiocht Nua: New Poetry VII Glad Eyes In the necessary room of cubicles and mirrors I am absentminded , hear only the cistern fill, the automatic hand-drier go off and on...