A Single Skuller
Living Skin
The Final Whistle
RECOVERED POEMS
The Island
from Rosemaries
Riverbank
NEW PROSE
My Dominant Characteristic
Life as a Serious Person
The Little Talker
THE ISLAND
For George Mackay Brown, 1975
1. The Inhabitants
The few cottages
still with roofs lie low
below sea-level
the old schoolmaster
and the ex-postman
pass the summer months
and sometimes of late
the odd artist breaks
the monotony
and from time to time
from the mainland comes
a man to count sheep
carcasses on the cliff
to mend the damage
to his lobster-pots
and with local chat
it takes hours to catch
up with the gossip.
2. Ghosts
The grass grown over
the fading goat-tracks
I am reminded
that between the rocks
and the people there
was never much room
to move so narrow
these pathways where always
the island women
on the Dingle road
(not so long ago)
walked in single file.
3. Children in the City
The life there smaller
in comparison with
what they don’t know now
on the horizon
aerial washing
soiled by the trains
said to have their pride
not without reason
though always kind to
strangers behind backs
people talk gnawing minds
touchy and dangerous
in this half-city
careful
not to soil their hands -
only off-duty
gardai in shirtsleeves
garden the outskirts.
4. Manuscript Sources
A natural landscape
to illuminate
great events gospels
the eggs of sea-birds
to bring out the light
and salt to keep in
a neat hand to let
the eels and cats in
and a patchwork hen
details sly
as the whitehaired saint
with a mayflower face
sitting on a dry-
stone wall in each crack
a fly hides the ocean.
5. King of Gola Island
At the highest point
an oblong stone
satisfies the gods
and a long-backed man
extends seawards
early morning eyes
a mile out to sea
crags surfacing
throw up phantom fogs
beyond, horizons
round themselves off
and five herons rise.
For George Mackay Brown, 1975
1. The Inhabitants
The few cottages
still with roofs lie low
below sea-level
the old schoolmaster
and the ex-postman
pass the summer months
and sometimes of late
the odd artist breaks
the monotony
and from time to time
from the mainland comes
a man to count sheep
carcasses on the cliff
to mend the damage
to his lobster-pots
and with local chat
it takes hours to catch
up with the gossip.
2. Ghosts
The grass grown over
the fading goat-tracks
I am reminded
that between the rocks
and the people there
was never much room
to move so narrow
these pathways where always
the island women
on the Dingle road
(not so long ago)
walked in single file.
3. Children in the City
The life there smaller
in comparison with
what they don’t know now
on the horizon
aerial washing
soiled by the trains
said to have their pride
not without reason
though always kind to
strangers behind backs
people talk gnawing minds
touchy and dangerous
in this half-city
careful
not to soil their hands -
only off-duty
gardai in shirtsleeves
garden the outskirts.
4. Manuscript Sources
A natural landscape
to illuminate
great events gospels
the eggs of sea-birds
to bring out the light
and salt to keep in
a neat hand to let
the eels and cats in
and a patchwork hen
details sly
as the whitehaired saint
with a mayflower face
sitting on a dry-
stone wall in each crack
a fly hides the ocean.
5. King of Gola Island
At the highest point
an oblong stone
satisfies the gods
and a long-backed man
extends seawards
early morning eyes
a mile out to sea
crags surfacing
throw up phantom fogs
beyond, horizons
round themselves off
and five herons rise.