Best Heaney Poems
They are all gone now,
Heaney, Mahon and Longley
the last to go.
Their words speak
to these troubled times
with a lasting humanity.
Thanks be
to poetry's Irish trinity.
Categories:
heaney, poets,
Form:
Free verse
(for Seamus Heaney)
as if the pale stones
share the warmth
between two sides
sea and field cut
early light and full morning
the path weathered and slow
Categories:
heaney, death, dedication,
Form:
Elegy
Whether it's acrostic, limerick, ballad, ballade, or autobiographical,
Keats, Byron, Blake, or Heaney,
that is just a tiny,
part of the magical, mistical, phenomenal world of poetry and prose,
you won't be able to get your nose,
out of our great poets poetry or prose,
join our magical world of the great unknown.
Categories:
heaney, devotion, world, poetry,
Form:
Blank verse
For Trudy Diane Rider's competition entitled "Hopelessly devoted" (what is your passion)
rhyming required ababbcc:
My mind is racing as I vacate my bed
I need to grab my lap top fast as hell
What rhymes with bed? - it could be red or dead
What rhymes with hell? - perhaps a tolling bell
As my poem emerges, hope it all will gel
I wake each day with rhythm and beat, it's great
To pen it all and see it in print, can't wait.
Buzzing with feelings and words not yet agreed
Muttering syllables, throughout the alphabet
Beating out time and meter at a high speed
When in the soup, will take any help I can get
As beautiful words can change one's whole mindset
I wake each day with rhythm and beat, it's great
To pen it all and see it in the print, can't wait.
Ballads and sonnetts, epics, Haiku's and more
Works by Keats I'll read and then I'll expand
Writing odes to doves and sea birds now ashore
In my native town, midst the sun, sea and the sand
Then I'll dream of Heaney and Joyce and Yeats - And
I'll wake each day with rhythm and beat, it's great
To pen it all and see it in print, can't wait.
It's such a buzz to finally get it out
Inking that picture captured by me alone
Reading it over there sure will be some doubt
Though magic in words that only I can own
Original, seeds that I have newly sewn
I'll wake each day with rhythm and beat, it's great
To pen it all and see it in print, can't wait.
Categories:
heaney, devotionday, words, sea, day,
Form:
Rhyme Royal
Poets
in literal meaning
are not responsive
to normative rules of dying
moreover
just like the Saints
they do not fit into a
written conventions
of the existence
of the survival
at all costs
at the cost of their own greatness
they rather resemble
orphaned fortresses
which has to be taken
meter by meter - as in the past
with the severe blood loss
or permanently straining
among the yellow fields
mossy towers with no vaults
but with the ever-vigilant gaze
poet as gaper
windblown
caressed by storms
until he not falls
never measures
himself as the one
and then all fading behind
for life and death of a Poet
there is no proper time
he lives in himself
stirring up higher and higher
by the abandoned fortification
of horror of consequences
to the moment in which
he is taken - far far away
- In memory of
Seamus Heaney
Categories:
heaney, death, dedication, poets,
Form:
Epitaph
In recognition of the Nobel Poet Laureat Seamus Heaney,
who a few minutes before he left this world last Friday
echoed the Words of the King before He rose from this earth;
NOLI TIMERE....... DO NOT BE AFRAID.
Thank you for that much needed reminder of Christ's own words,
Seamus Heaney. May God have mercy on your poetic soul and your loved ones.
There is no hope in the world. There is only hope in Christ.
Be Not Afraid.
Categories:
heaney, inspirational, poets, prayer,
Form:
Free verse
A HEANEY EKPHRASIS
Lyrical in beauty,dug from
the depths of the past.
A storyteller, articulate in
elegaic stanza writing words
to last.Of farm life and childhood,
deep in Irish terra firma in
which he and his poetry stood.
A delightful imagist quality
of 'as is moments' once
frozen in memory,and now
released for our delight .His
triplet,quatrain and quintain form
brings a succinctness of thought
combined with the commonplace
A Tribute to Seamus Heaney 1939-2013
Listen to this ekphrasis of mine recited on youtube under the pen name ichthyschiro
Categories:
heaney, poets,
Form:
Ekphrasis
...inspired by 'Fireside' by Seamus Heaney
Flashlight tracings trap and dazzle,
dancing in the twilight. Children hurry
through the meadow, flip-flops flapping,
eager beavers chasing dreams.
Quick the flow, the stream blinks
back a hint of moonlight,
and the torches' criss cross
patterns scatter 'til the beams converge.
Nets are plied, and mason jars
are dunked beneath the rippling surface,
small fish wriggle in confinement
midst excitement and delight.
Safe and snug, imaginations settle,
tucked in as they say goodnight.
Categories:
heaney, kids,
Form:
Verse
...inspired by 'An Artist' by Seamus Heaney
He keeps himself confined,
to bluster now, and remonstrate
the struggle being more than he can bear.
Pieces of him pulverized, fashioned from
the sweat of his own making to a glimpse
of the immortal, just a glimpse, but not
the crowning glory.
So many vestiges, heros in the making,
but a careless chip, an errant slice,
consigns them to the beggars pile,
without that patina of agelessness.
Never ready, never groomed to wear
that sacred halo on their heads,
the crowning glory.
Once in a while a piece emerges,
bursting from the cold, defiant marble,
his fingers can't work fast enough
to exorcize this deity,
fingers, limbs and face in perfect symmetry,
they become eternal,
the suggestion of a wreath their crowning glory!
Categories:
heaney, inspirational
Form:
Verse
Seamus Heaney died today,
A fitting end for a poet,
The Rest In Silence.
©dbyrne Aug 31 2013
Categories:
heaney, absence, death,
Form:
Free verse
JENNY FREE VERSE
Balaclava over my head,
I nipped into the John Hewitt
and went nervously up to the bar.
'Are you a poet?' a woman's voice inquired.
I dreaded the question, so embarrassed. It was a key moment.
'I'm ... I play with words on paper!'
I fumbled in my pocket for a pen and notebook.
'I'm having fun with the language!'
I laughed - I felt a great weight
lift from my shoulders
as she slipped the balaclava
off my head and kissed me.
'Can I buy you a drink?' the lady
bought me a Pernod, and hey presto!
we were off to the races,
talking passionately
About Heaney, Mahon and Longley.
Jenny Free Verse
gave me her number,
promised to have a look at my notebook
and give me some feedback.
'Cheers!'
I waltzed down the street,
got back to the house in ¾ time,
got my Italian leather, hand-crafted,
writing journal out from the tall boy
and wrote, ‘I just met Jenny Free Verse!'
Categories:
heaney, fantasy, me, me,
Form:
Narrative
What an opportunity.
A blank piece of paper.
I am a poem, I can fill this white void,
My words will spill over the page.
Will they tumble with joy or sorrow?
Will I make you laugh or cry - perhaps both.
I will have form and rhythm.
I will have meter and rhyme. Rhyme?
Perhaps not this time.
My language may be of flowers, of love,
Partings, meetings, endings and beginnings.
I may be Shakespeare, Heaney, Larkin.
I may be epic, haiku, long or short.
But where to begin?
Will the pencil glide over the paper
In a glorious outpouring,
Or will it stop and start like a train on a branch line?
So may words, so many emotions .
How to put them into coherent lines,
Make sense of them, or perhaps non-sense.
When I reach the bottom of the page
Will there be more? Turn over, keep going,
Or will this blank white sheet
Be an opportunity crumpled?
Categories:
heaney, poetry, writing,
Form:
...inspired by 'Goodnight' by Seamus Heaney
From dark to black they staggered,
felt for familiar surfaces,
they groped until the lantern flickered,
faint glow resurrecting shadows.
Cold and flaggy floors uneven,
up and down they skittered
like two drunkards on a binge,
finding legs and sturdiness.
Gaslight blue-flamed 'neath the kettle,
blanket grabbed, the bed was ransacked,
tea was swallowed gratefully,
with a twist the lamp gave up the ghost.
From light to black, not even starlight
gave relief to weathered eyes,
huddled 'neath the self-same blanket,
wide-mouthed yawns and muffled sighs.
Categories:
heaney, writing,
Form:
Quatrain
...inspired by 'The Railway Children' by Seamus Heaney
Memories as sharp as diamonds,
keen as knives, the smell of
train smoke burns my nostrils still.
Chilly mornings, misty, magic,
gleaming rails so full of promise,
lumbering Leviathans,
wheezing, roaring, bound for Scotland
or the local seaside towns,
holidayers revelling.
Dewdrops glisten, hush and listen
for the storied 8:09,
ready with our pens and journals.
Now steam and smoke are long forgotten,
flashing wheels and majesty,
except for old men who were young
with memories as sharp as diamonds.
Categories:
heaney, childhood
Form:
Verse
...inspired by 'M' by Seamus Heaney
The cranium, its bumps and hollows
cradle secrets stored beneath,
neurons firing, never tiring
of their journeys to belief.
Thin vibrations mold, embolden
prophecies, cunabula,
imagine then the soul and spirit
of the wondrous Akhmatova!
Categories:
heaney, dedication
Form:
Verse