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Best Poems Written by Charles Barry

Below are the all-time best Charles Barry poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Charles Barry Poem

St Patrick's Alphabet

St Patrick’s Alphabet

A is America land of the free

B is for Beatles as Irish as me

C is the great Cliffs of Moher so pretty

D is for Dublin the capital city

E is for Eire – true name of my land

F is for Fionn and the Fianna his band

G is for Guinness a world-famous name

H is for Hurling a rather rough game

I is my Island and what it creates

J is for Joyce, Stephens, Swift and Jack Yeats

K is King Niall and the old kings at Tara

L is a leprechaun called MacNamara

M is for mise, me fein and me too

N is for Nuala, Naoimh, Nora and crew

O is O’Reilly O’Keefe and their worth

P -  Patrick saint in the land of my birth

Q is for quiz, gob, cailin and the rest

R is the River Shannon in the west

S is for Shamrock a flower of three

T is Tramore, Tullamore and Tralee 

U is U2 who are still going strong

V is from Ulster – he’s Van Morrison

W – whiskey a very strong drink

X is eXcuse me no word can I think

Y is for You when like me you agree,

Z ’s not in Ireland there no last can be

Details | Charles Barry Poem

The Stain of Death

The Stain of Death

Going into that terrible place
A living dust-bin, black bags 
With clothes and books inside
No sign of individuality
Packs and stacks of anonymity
Nothing there to define her personality
But a big stain of vomit on the inside of the toilet
There she made her mark in her last hours
Nothing else in her house of horrors  that lets you know 
She ever lived there
And even that vile stain is only a sign that 
She died there

Details | Charles Barry Poem

Nature Holds the Rope

Nature holds the rope

I remember that Thursday
Crystallized in my mind
Like all the intense moments of my life
At the doctor’s with my wife

She had a heart
Why did she depart?
Why was this the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art

We had a hope
We thought we could cope
But Nature held the rope
Around our baby who might have been born
Now our hopes are torn

She had a heart
Why did she depart?
Why was this the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art

Was it all for the best?
In a place of eternal rest…..
Not for me!
I want my baby!

She had a heart
Why did she depart?
Why was this  the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art

They’ll say it still
It must have been God’s will
Was this a chance to kill 
Another of Pharaoh’s sons?
Or was an angel sent
To massacre the innocent?


She had a heart
Why did she depart?
Why was this  the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art

A dog a horse a rat-
I know what Lear was at
With his famous lament
To grief I too give vent
-Why do they have life 
And you have not
My child asleep in some ethereal cot……

She had a heart
Why did she depart?
Why was this the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art


Those aesthetic fools
Who play with their tools
And say Art over nature
If only they knew how premature……




She had a heart
Why did she depart?
Why was this the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art

We had a beautiful baby
But in the law of natural selection
She didn’t even win a primary election
Her heart-beat was too slow
And so she had to go……


But sill she had a heart!
 So why  did she depart?
Why was this the end and not the start?
This was Nature over Art

Details | Charles Barry Poem

Back To Belfast

Back to Belfast

I have been to the Ghetto thrice
To Auschwitz twice
And to Belfast once
And to tell the truth
Belfast is the winner of the weirdest places 
Where I’ve ever been

But to be fair
That was just before Good Friday-
The peak of the peace process

Deserted streets
Walls dividing roads
Flags aggressively hanging from windows
Emblems that define their owners’ sympathy
Plain buildings bedecked by racist graffiti

It made me think of a European inter-war capital
Berlin or Rome in the era of dictators
Sectarian genocide was lurking there
But no blackshirts visible to give it an edge

My country, my people
What have you done?
How could you do this?
Answer me!


I’ve had my share of tight corners 
But I can safely say 
No place ever made me feel so uneasy
As Belfast on that day

Until now
Now when I’ve returned
Back there
Back to Belfast

Deserted streets
Fences blocking movement
Face masks preventing and protecting against infection
Emblems that define the struggle for survival
Health signs that warn us how to avoid death
Death at the hands of the virus

Homicide, infanticide, genocide-
This time there’s no special target
The enemy is everybody
With the infection






Now the blackshirts are on the road
Patrolling a deserted dyke
On the outskirts of Warsaw
Soldiers, policemen,  imposing regulations
All doing their duty, all plainly seen
But the enemy is invisible

The victims in isolation
Their families in quarantine
The rest of us waiting
For the lurking virus to strike again
If we stay at home-
With shops and cafes
Parks and cinemas closed-
Are we safe?

If I daub the door of my house 
With the blood of Lombards
Will I escape this Shoah?
For how long will this go on?
How many more deaths
Before the required quota?



My God, my God 
What have we done?
How have we offended you?
Answer me!

Details | Charles Barry Poem

Pangs of Exile

Pangs of exile


In the season of the fallen leaf
Pangs of exile, pangs of grief
Should I join the expat web?
I will still receive The Sheaf
Pangs of exile, pangs of grief

I listen to a foreign tongue
The sound goes on the evening long
Oh to hear the name O’Keefe -
Pangs of exile, pangs of grief -
- Murphy, Kelly or O’Reilly,
Barry, Binchy, Casey, Miley
- Pangs of hunger, rhyming monger -

Oh to hear the Dublin scouse
Or to see St Margaret’s house
In Kilbarrack, Dublin 5
All gone now  but still a hive
Of people from the past
In Warsaw I may be the last 
Remembering………

In the season of the fallen leaf        
Pangs of exile, pangs of grief
I can’t go back
I must go on -
Like Beckett
I will go on -
In exile….

Details | Charles Barry Poem

Faith

Faith


Life and Death are two rooms in one house
Life is the open room
Death is the closed room

An atheist thinks this room is empty
There is nothing in it
He can’t see anything
He can’t hear anything 
It  must be empty -

We die in the open room.

A believer thinks there’s something inside
Maybe a flicker of light
Maybe a rustle of something
Just because it’s locked 
It doesn’t mean it’s empty

He knocks and thinks he might be heard
He speaks and thinks he hears a whisper

Is it for him? Is it for me?
Maybe a mistake
Who knows?

But I believe that when the door is finally unlocked 
The first room will close

We will live in the new open room


16.10.14

Details | Charles Barry Poem

Black Friday

Black Friday

So here we are again
My reflection and I
The worst of friends
As we’ve always been

Surely nothing could be better
I am a happily married man 
With a beautiful wife
And a lovely child

But something has grown
Out of the unknown
A latent energy

A mysterious
Creeping and suffocating 
Loneliness

The reason for this
I can’t attempt to analyse
When I try, I cry out
With surprise

But I am surely mad
You may say
It can only come to bad
You may say

And yet it is there
A lurking, choking, mysterious
Loneliness

So here we are again
An evening full of pain
When all my work is done
When my wife and child have gone 

And where are you?
Waiting on a wet Friday night
For your lovely child 
To finish her dance classes

Surely something could be better
For an unhappily married woman
Returning to her home
Waiting for her drunken lover……..

Don’t get me wrong
No indecent proposals
Only a wish to share a common feeling-
Loneliness

Monika – this is just one moment
And we have to think of our lives
Our responsibilities.

But can I dare ask you -
Despite my religious restraints-
Despite the fact that my carnal desire
For you may seem like playing with fire-

Can I dare ask you-
Knowing that we are cautious adults-
Can we one black Friday night-
Share our loneliness together?

Maybe I’ve misread the signals-
Maybe I don’t know what I’m saying-
Don’t get worried about my suggestions
In an age of obsessive sexual insinuations-

I repeat one last time tonight
Can we share our loneliness together?

Details | Charles Barry Poem

May 1974

May 1974

Why do you need to waste your time today
Writing an elegy no one will read?

Add the half-cent to the cent
And text to shivering text
For you were born to text
And save-

But let her be 
She’s dead and gone 
She’s with her baby in the grave

Yet they were of a different kind
They didn’t text
Their lives they didn’t save-

But let her be 
She’s dead and gone
She’s with her baby in the grave

Was it for this you came to Warsaw?
To write poems about the dead in Dublin?
Not today but 40 years ago-

Does it matter where they died
Or when?
Does it matter where I live
Or when?

You can come to the party
At the Irish Embassy
The minister will be there
The ICC will pay their share



Forgotten by their own race who
Fumble on the greasy keyboard
Making money and texting tinkers
Skypeing and phoning in the temple of Midas

Please let her be 
She’s dead and gone 
She’s with her baby in the grave

But should we not know 
Who her killer was?
Or at least  know 
Who connived at her killing…….


So was it for this you wrote your dirge?
To hold up  the hatchet-
To puncture the peace process-
To live through that pain
All over again

Yet could we turn the years again
And be in that same month of May?
Could we just delete that day
And save ourselves from all that pain?

Just let her be
She’s dead and gone
She’s with her baby in the grave

She’s surely dead and gone
Yet justice must be done
And we must go on

You might cry-
(Like after the Stardust fire)
‘Why?’

And I would answer -
Between neighbouring nations
That have good relations
There are no secret files, no classified information

Telling the truth is no delirium of the  brave
It is only what we owe to those in the grave

13.05.2015

Details | Charles Barry Poem

A Sonnet For Kasia On Her Wedding

A Sonnet for Kasia on her wedding
When I consider women I have known
And I assess the way my love has grown
That this short space of time has changed so much
Where both my hand and yours have been in touch
When I recall a colleague years ago 
The seeds of sympathy did in Stuttgart sow
A carnal wish for you I dare express
But in our shared religion must repress
My wife, my child they give such happiness
Please God – like ours- your marriage He will bless
With joy and children and a peaceful home 
Where doubt, depression, shame and boredom  cannot roam
For Kasia I have felt the fruits of friendship grow so strong
I pray we’ll work together and be true friends for long

Details | Charles Barry Poem

You Are Gone

You are gone

You remembered my birthday for easily fifty years
Every October without fail a card and in later years
An optional call or text.
Where is your annual autumnal greeting today?
This bright sunny afternoon …….
I would expect to hear from you tonight-
But you are gone 
No more birthday wishes from you again

I got the news yesterday that the health insurance money
Was lodged in my bank
Thank you for the present but I’d rather you present than the money
It couldn’t have been both – so I’d prefer if it was you
If only there’d been one last summer holiday here with you
To try and convince you to see sense-
To save you from this avoidable death
But why go on - why waste my breath?
Yes - you are gone
No more birthday wishes from you again