Best Slav Poems
Assured in her beliefs,
My Grandma knew the score:
Not many folk would get to Heaven;
The following would be ignored.
A black man, Jew, Italian,
Catholic, Greek, or Slav,
Misguided Presbyterian,
Adolescent plotting Love.
The Poor, because they should have saved,
The Rich who had too much,
The Drunkard for his need,
The Cripple for his crutch.
Soda jerks (that's bottled drink)
Beauticians? Vanity.
A neighbor Boy once sat with me
Beneath the willow tree.
All these she held apart,
In Scripture being able
Secure in righteousness to find
For diversity a label.
For In-laws she had Charity,
A level Christian measure,
Sufficient thus to demonstrate
Duty over Pleasure.
Of children, there were three,
(Increase will prevail)
Precisely formed and tolerated,
Though indeed one was a Male!
This identical deficiency
Was incumbent on her Spouse.
(Something like an in-law
Only always in the house.)
I'd have liked, Grandma, to see you greet
The missionaried Heathen
Whose Souls the eggs were sold to save.
Just who is let into your Heaven?
So cleverly you read the text,
So sweet you sang the song.
I love you, Grandma, you tried so hard
And got everything so wrong!
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Poems written on a trip to Prague
in 2009
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Sailing Neath the Charles Bridge
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Such history flows beneath this bridge
And all that have walked on it
So many pass its statues walk
And think so little of it.
Germans, Russians and the Slav
Have at times been masters here
And yet none was ever master
So from history it does appear
An Irishman beneath it sails
As slowly the Vlatava flows
And everyone goes about their lives
And no one of me knows
And a poem that I have written
As many have done before
And indeed in years to come
So will many more.
So I dance on the wild waters
Neath the Charles bridge in a boat
And others in a day to come
Of it will read the words on it I wrote...
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Merchants at the Pinkas Synagogue
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They sell their wares on open stands
Trinkets, postcards, and stuff
They are everywhere that I can see
The senses it does rebuff
This place is sacred is it not?
Where the story is told
Of mans inhumanity to man
Not a venue to trade for gold?
I feel I think like Jesus did
Of those merchants which I passed
And wished I could do as He
And from the synagogue them to have cast
You cannot take pictures inside at all
And so others cannot see
The scale, the beauty and the horror
Of those names in front of me
Or the pictures of those children
Hanging today on a wall
To see the blind and fain hopes of returning home they held
When they had no hope at all.
But a photo can be taken in the courtyard
But not for free by you
But for €40 or so
It seems surreal, I ask is it true
It tells the story of the holocaust
But its memory it does smear
By selling of trinkets on the strength of spilled blood
To the visitor it does appear
That money is indeed the God
And they will be content
With every misery they endure
If from its memory they can turn a cent.
In cynical mood I write these words
I feel about stands at Knock the same
They do not belong there where they are
That they are is a shame.
Cast the merchants from the Temples
Hold whats sacred as sacred inside
Have a love in your heart for the Lord your God
And in your heart Compassion, Remembrance, and Pride!
(On 28 June 1914, in the Balkan town of Sarajevo,
an attempt to assassinate a royal Austrian duke
failed miserably ... or did it? Gabriel Princips, one
of the plotters, stopped for a coffee and by chance
saw the duke, sitting in a stalled car, and shot him
dead. This triggered the First World War. Here,
the cafe owner fails to grasp the significance of
what is unfolding.)
Komm hier, Nannerl. Put down that tray. Observe.
It's thus we take the skin off warmed-up milk,
just so. But where's that little fellow gone?
The one stood there. This is his coffee. Look.
The small one, dark and oval in the face,
with piercing eyes ... I know - but will he pay?
One coffee and a madeleine he had,
and looked the type to linger for an hour.
How strange! Go, look. He might be on the street.
Some twenty years, a feeble black moustache.
No, not the corner door - look out the side.
A Slav, of course a Slav! No manly Teuton
would leave by side-street exit. Go and see!
It's typical of them. I know them well.
My name's not Moritz Schiller if I lie.
They're children - so impulsive, petulant -
incapable of seeing anything through.
That's why they need us. Isn't it obvious?
We're like the English, it's our Ireland,
we're here to civilize them. At what cost?
I'd rather train a cat. They're sulky, dull,
perpetually ungrateful ... what was that?
Good God, such noise! You'd think a war was starting,
or the crack of Judgement Day. Nannerl, was gibt?
A voice planning to rend the air soonest:
To itself pitch high for being quite honest.
No hushing spirit ever dares to cut short
What Transparent Truth has neatly bought.
“So, it shall have to be just rave and rave,
Roofs cave in with your crier’s high octave:
Kings, sure, are drunk with their magnificence
Moved speakers of The True innocence…
Yet, truth would rather speakers chose muteness,
For in rowdy broadcasts lies some cuteness,
Save when life’s treasured breath is involved
The sin of naïve silence not absolved…
A voice still out to rend the air soonest
Like Eagle fly high to sky-matching nest;
Or how else does one for lies dig their grave
And for Truth stand as Defender and slave?