Tag: family

Light


Black shoulders, white earphones,
she sits on a wooden stool
in the ‘Internet Centre of Excellence’
on Winthrop Street.

Blends into a smartphone,
consuming power,
hooked,
like my dad consumed TV,
sat by his books
in Fort Mary.

Her fingers fit for a keyboard,
carrying a library
in the pocket
of bleached blue jeans,
sipping water
from a SuperValu plastic bottle.

Frank O’Mahony smoked a pipe
in a drawing room,
sat in an armchair covered in faded flowers,
never blotting a book, straining a spine,
creasing a corner, ripping a leaf.
Father sold books.

Eyes glued to screens,
consuming stories,
liquid crystal married to tubular light,
pathways to wider worlds.

They both wore brown shoes.

Eulogy for our mum

Our mother doesn’t believe in death
Our grandma doesn’t believe in death
Our great grandmother doesn’t believe in death.
Even after everyone knows she’s passed away
she doesn’t believe in death.

She believes in sign-posts
and the sort of markers that say
you’ve entered a new townland.

Our mum believes in evolution and re-cycling
and believes she’s back with the love of her life
the man she married for thirty years
her husband forever.

Our mum believes in the journey
The journey with people, the journey for people,
the good life.

Our mum is …
Our mum was ready.
Oh, she told her family a long time ago
that she was ready.

She lived her day-to-day with love
as generously as any creature.
She reached out to the widest family of humanity
and she believes that’s the only way to live up,
to live the good life.

Our mum doesn’t believe in death
she believes in Resurrection,
forgiving.

She believes she’s moved on
her work on Earth is done
her work among us is the best she could do.

Our mum believes she’s no saint
she has sinned
she’s made her peace
she is forgiven.

Our mum is in love
a love deeper that the lover who feels
they’ve found the one they were meant to find.

Our mum doesn’t only believe in God
our mum knows her God is love
and love endures for ever.

A note to my mother – August 2006

Dear Mum

If I simply say ‘you’re the best mum I’ve ever had‘,
you’ll know I’m in touch with previous lives.

But you’ll deserve it – because you brought us up
to think and duel with words, and look beyond

to the next time when I shouldn’t be late, or break
House Rules, lest you and I would give and take

for hours and hours – so I would learn and yearn
to be my own person – as is your way.

Poetry: “We played hide-and-seek on holidays”

We played hide and seek on holiday

I would close my eyes at evening,
the breeze would slip away
to another appointment.

I would count the lights go down,
cover my head from stars,
let the moon keep watch.

I would draw back shutters at dawn,
go search for the wind
outside

A mosaic of pale stone
ferociously pushing heat into my face,
a frog fixed in the pond with fierce eyeballs.

I would look behind corners of brilliant white
across luscious grass blades, erect, unmoving,
plumbago petals still under cork oaks,

palms hanging arced in the oven.
I would look and look,
until both eyelids would give in,

and call out to the wind:
You have won, Unfound One
You are master of this game.

A man I looked at twice

A man I looked at twice

I saw a man that reminded me of another,
grey bristles conjured up a face
I’d forgotten.

The forgotten put me in mind of the father
I’d lost, and that deathbed
brought back to life

the mother of my best friend
as she lay wasting
and the nurse checked the cathedra

made in a country where I’d visited
the Pied Piper’s adopted home
and fell asleep

in a single bed over which a portrait
of Saint Aloysius hung, next to the holy water font
replenished by an unknown agency.

 

___________________

Note:

I self-published the first version of this poem on my blog in January 2006 

 

Bookshops donate blood

I was born with a bookshop in my mouth

I’m not sure when I swallowed it.

Dell classics, ‘Sixty-four pagers’ and comics 

softened me up,

like butter and caster sugar 

in a mixing bowl.

I’m not sure how books imprinted on my double helix 

and passed from puberty 

to pulsating subjects of desire,

while I combed curly hair 

with Brylcream 

like my father

– like my book-selling father.

He’d grown up above the shop 

owned shelves, 

dusters  

and cash-registers.

“So long as you don’t bend back spines,

leave fingerprints, 

crease leaves, 

so we can sell each book as new,

I bid you read all you fancy.”

 A feast fit for a glutton

– I’m sure I read a book.

I certainly climbed trees, 

collected swords,

cut and sharpened spears, 

bent and strung bows

fixed berberis thorns 

fired arrows 

hurled clumps of earth,

released poison mushrooms, 

and built a war-room 

hidden in the bushes. 

– I’m sure I read a book.

I listened to ball-by-ball cricket, 

the Clitheroe Kid,

the Top Twenty

caddied for Dad,

cut grass for pocket money.

collected “Forty-Fives”

– I’m sure I read a book.

Drewled over particular photographs in National Geographics,

undistracted by text

vexed by interruptions.

– I hardly read a book until I left home.

Walking  down Dublin’s Dawson Street,

crossing Charing Cross Road, 

hurrying through Hay-on-Wye

or window-shopping streets 

of any self-respecting Quarter 

is a pain

is a pest

is a penence.

Bookshops slow me down, 

make me late

empty my pockets. 

Bookshops kidnap me

compel me to suffer 

the cries of authors, editors, printers, publishers – even marketeers. 

“Take me,

just read my blurb, 

fondle me, 

smell me, 

feel me between your fingers. 

Let’s go somewhere quiet and consummate. 

You may suck my blood.”

 

 

Portrait of a noble winesmith 

300px-Beaulon_font_fees

Portrait

The wine he poured from an old glass

the grape distilled at least twice

the place inherited easily

from bishops, politicians and King.

The first growth he loved

Monsieur Christian –

guardian of the blue pool

alongside mosquitos

pink roses and a caramel tree

fortified juice a white touch –

paid taxes to the elected government

sold bottles for a living

walked in shade

as water flowed up from mountains.

Proprietor with title and vocation,

a travelled homme

le rouge et le blanc.

——

Note:

Written 3 August 2012 after a visit to Chateau de Beaulon

 

“Thanks-Giving Day” – poem by Paul O’Mahony

sometimes our thank you is said so casually
or quickly that it is nearly meaningless.
(Martin Seligman)
______________

I was never thankful
to my father
or my mother

I wasn’t even thankful
to the Universe
for what I had.

the house, clothes, water, food, shoes, shirts, bath,
garden, roses, grass, apples, hens, cabbage, loganberries,
hedgehog, lizard, bushes, even the bees

tortoise, trees, dogs, cats, fire, pocket-money, prayers,
holy water, statues, carpets, paintings, music, jelly, eggcups,
fireplaces,books, radiogram, even the plums

school, transport, brothers, sisters, God, cod-liver oil, mass,
chickens, eggs, lamb, salmon, ox-tongue, bread and butter pudding,
golf clubs, cut glass, even the gooseberries

ice cream, pancakes, rice pudding, red currants, peaches, pears,
record player, transistor radio, Luxembourg, milk, football, rashers,
cards, chess, rugby, even the blackberries

dobbers, conkers, tiddlywinks, compendium of games, holidays,
stories, photographs, confession, friends, short trousers, novenas,
nuns, thermometers, even the wagtails

pillows, pencils, bicycles, blazers, socks, sweets, pepper, porridge,
underpants, sandals, gospels, rules, knives, teaspoons, commandments,
gongs, conversations, birthdays, even the earthworms

If you asked me then whether I was grateful
I’d have said ‘yes’

If you ask me now whether I was thankful
I shall stay silent.

If you’re curious to know whether I am thankful today
I am more full of thanks than ever

– for all that and more.

 

 

This is Bond : “Shaken Not Stirred”

Bernie

I first met Mr Bond on Periscope & was lured into discovering his background & creative work.

Bernie’s story : Let Mr Bernie Bond’s voice introduce his story.

You hear our 007 reveal

  • how he got the name “Bernie”
  • his ancestors – the Aird family from the Black Isle on east coast of Scotland …
  • how his great great grandfather started a company that became prosperous during the industrial revolution …
  • the family story on his father’s side: moved from Scotland to London to Germany to settle in Austria
  • his parents were born in Austria …
  • how Bernie was inspired by his family’s background
  • Bernie’s love of 1960’s music … especially the Beatles
  • how he learned to play guitar & played in groups
  • how he wrote & recorded songs in his little home studio
  • Bernie the keen footballer – still plays today
  • how he earned his living playing in bands & was unemployed
  • the story of how he got a job in the travel industry as resort rep for 4 years in Austrian mountains
  • how his ability to speak German helped
  • how he joined a startup that became a market leader in UK
  • he now works there as contracts & commercial manager for UK tour operator
  • our 007 lives in Mittersill Austria
  • he lived in Bath in 1970s & years later uploaded all his songs on to Internet
  • his got into video & created videos to go with his songs
  • when he heard James Bond crew were filming “Spectre” in villages (where his parents come from) he made this short video, as a tribute to the villages
  • his biggest success was the song “Mittersill Forever” to which Bernie added music, harmony voice & video footage (7k views on Facebook + over 2k on You Tube).

________________________________

Our 007 Bond in action 

________________________________

Note:  

Huge thanks to Bernie Airds (@airdwaves on Twitter + PeriscopeTV on Bernie Airds on You Tube) for his generosity & collaboration.

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