Nobody’s dead, it’s okay. The people who made you are in you. And those you knew, whose folks were in them too, came into you as well. And the crowd of you mingled into the crowd of them, Late arrivals ringing, appeared and oh the reunions, the smiles, the sorrys, and the laughter.
Photo: The Bohemian Society, Dublin. My grandfather Peter Moran is seen in profile, seated on the right. I don’t know who the others are or the date, possibly late 1930s.
12 June 2022: It was a pleasant Sunday evening of poetry and friendly chat, meeting local poets and listening to the top of the bill, Judi Sutherland’s commentary and excerpts from her epic poem, Following Teisa.
For the record my “set list” (because I’m like Bob Dylan y’know) was:
As well as getting two poems out of my referral to the Western Eye Hospital, as I said at the Torriano, I also got this blog post, which should be subtitled “Angels or Demons,” and several other mercifully unpublished poems.
Photo: “Frankie Pedantic at the Apollo” cartoon by Zoz (aka yours truly.)
The number of all the raindrops that ever fell on England raised to all the snowflakes that ever fell on Japan by the number of jelly beans in a very big jar, that number of words, would not outweigh a pinch of wild cotton as would make a pillow for a fairy.
— YorkshireShepherdess (@AmandaOwen8) May 29, 2022
* Wild Cotton is a rewrite of the poem “The Weight of Words” from Day of the Flying Leaves. I was inspired to rename it by the beautiful photos shared by YorkshireShepherdess on Twitter. (Stephen)
I’ll be popping in to read for a few minutes as a guest poet before the main act. I’ll bring copies of my book and sign them for you, unless you would like one of the rare unsigned ones. (The old jokes are the best.)
June 12th – Judi Sutherland reading from her new pamphlet ‘Following Teisa’ introduced by Pauline Sewards. Here’s the Facebook event link:
Distracting self with fantasies to drown out ever louder ringing bell of deadline filled week. From Stephen Moran’s Day of the Flying Leaves: pic.twitter.com/k0J6gSOGRD
Bridge of Tolka, Drumcondra Park, spelter baluster, pewter spate. Spectre of Swan’s liturgy, philtre of Stac’s refrain, and peroxide Ida, acid exchange student, your college green a prairie to our Botanics. You sexed me with a buttercup, highly, and yogi-sat akimbo. Oh Ida, we shoulda. I’da!
Where are you now, Obama bounden, marked for McCain, bankrupt in Ohio, divorced in Union City? Do men put their words into your mouth in Idaho? Are you a mother of succour or did you die purple-hearted by the tracks in Maine?
I’ll seek you high and low in Isle au Haut, I’ll trade Manhattan for rosary beads and pray for an apparition, I’ll drop into every dive from Atlantic City to shining Zee, and go over Niagara in a glass-bottomed boat, looking for my Tolka naiad.
But should all peroxide Idas look the same, I’ll find out what Martinis are and drink them dry, I’ll down firewater without reservation in the Indian nations, I’ll find a night door and wait for you there as longing, unquiet as the Tolka flows.
(2008)
Photo: The Tolka river viewed from the bridge at Drumcondra
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