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Joe Canning Poem
Marian; Joe Canning (all rights reserved)
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'Marian'
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She was a small woman, a chain smoker
Hair always the same, an institutionalised crop.
Aware that she walked free in the wide world.
Free, but inside, trapped in silent trauma.
Haunted by echoing corridors and rattling beads.
Crucifixes strapped to the waists of her torturers.
Other girls like her in the hallways of the insane,
but the insanity lay in those brides of Christ.
Marian, a child of Leitrim, a forsaken one.
Abandoned to singers of hymns; women in the
control of profiteers that bowed to bishops;
that knelt before priests and took Communion.
Four decades saw her escape those dormitories.
Out of their clutches she was learning to smile.
A cigarette calmed her. She was adapting to freedom.
Ten a day, maybe twenty, but no one complained.
She became a carer soon after that, comforting others.
She knew how to care, she had seen the other side.
She nursed my mother, they argued but laughed later.
Parkinson's had no respect for mum, Marian had none for it.
She never missed Mass, "There's good priests too, she'd say"
She loved Ma's house, she loved her own little place too.
She missed Ma when Ma left us, Marian cried for days.
She retreated to the bungalow of her world, a bit lost.
She smoked a bit more then but she enjoyed every puff.
She too left us soon after that. Marian was going home.
We took her to Leitrim and laid her in the brown soil of Kinlough.
A searched out family came to sprinkle some earth on a lost sister.
Marian was a soul that suffered at hands devoid of compassion.
She will have forgiven those zealots by now.. It was in her nature.
No doubt she will have a higher chair than them, she deserves that.
Yes, she deserves that.
Copyright © Joe Canning | Year Posted 2017
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Joe Canning Poem
The Children of Limbo' (Canning Poetry)
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Sick to my stomach.
I am alone and thinking.
I have heard of the sunken pit.
That covert crypt of angels.
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Eight hundred innocents!
Eight hundred defenceless souls!
Without baptism, without sin.
Dishonoured by Brides of Christ.
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Followers of the orders of the Father,
Of purple clad men of robes and rings..
"Bless me father for I have sinned.
"Go in peace my child, I absolve thee."
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I imagine sights and smells,
when their wheezings stilled.
Their transportation to a dark chamber.
No Hail Mary's for them; Oh no!
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No 'Our Father's' for a 'stained human'
A "bastard spawned in sin. Undeserving".
No splashings of holy water on the tiny wraps.
"Off you go now to your state of Limbo".
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I'm thinking.. "Thou shalt not kill"
I'm thinking, "Did they? Surely not"?
I'm thinking, "suffer little children".
I'm hoping they will now reach Paradise
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I think of my country; subservient to a hierarchy.
Sisters without mercy. That holocaust of infants.
How many more gardens need turning, how many?
How many tots await their first blessing?
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My faith is suffering now. I am in limbo too.
I fear, my mother's examples I might abandon;and
I am angry; tomorrow, perhaps I will pray;
but only for the children; only for the children.
Copyright © Joe Canning | Year Posted 2017
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Joe Canning Poem
'The Maid That Waits For Me'
By Joe Canning. (c) copyright 2017.. All rights reserved
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Oh tonight the moon is looking down,
As my comrades wait with me.
As I write this letter to the love
That shares my hopes and dreams.
There's a silence here except for prayer
In our waiting for the dawn.
God help us when the whistle blows
It might be our last morn.
There's a madness in what we must do
When the early birds make song,
As we charge across the open ground;
To kill some mother's son.
I'm sure his thoughts are just like mine
On the far side of the field,
I pray to God that I'll see again
The maid that waits for me.
I pray she gets this letter
That I write with trembling hand.
For with it goes with my undying love
To my flower in sweet Strabane.
I trust she's praying for me now
As with God I make my peace
As I thank our brave young Padre
Holy water hits my face.,
I cannot sleep, for I'm afraid
and I don't want to die.
and somewhere down the trench a piece
I hear a young man cry.
He's asking for his mother
As we greet the morning glow,
Our Captain say's "get ready lads,
it's almost time to go."
Once more I think of Eileen
and our walks along the Foyle,
I see her face before me
And the vision brings me joy.
I cross myself and bid farewell
As I cross this Flanders field,
In the fervent hope I will return
To the maid that waits for me.
Copyright © Joe Canning | Year Posted 2017
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