Thought for the Day

How does the man who wakens up from the coma know the pin code that the bank is about to post out to him?

Do we live in non linear time where we act out two or three lives in different centuries simultaneously?

Or are we time travelling through black holes and worm holes and cosmic strings?

And is that why we know, unlikely as it seems, that the fellow stooped over his pint thinking about the 3.20 at Cheltenham will be our future spouse?

And why we are not surprised that our first lover is trousered in bandy legs and sports tousled hair exactly like our schoolgirl crushed maths teacher?

Not knowing then, but knowing now, that when we calf-eyed him across the classroom we were at the other end of a worm hole and it was our future we were beholding?

According to World Scientific “almost all real systems are non-linear … and the whole is more than the sum of its parts”* and so… we know…we just know…

Images for Wormholes in Space

 *www.worldscientific.com/

http://www.space.com/27845-interstellar-movie-wormhole-travel-feasibility.html

What Am I?

Photo will not help! Simply Spring....

WHAT AM I?

I am fired and fuelled in a brick-lined box.

I devour everything, but I prefer the snap

and crackle of twig and the taste of black bog.

Coal raises my pulse, makes me fart and hiss and spit

cracks my bone and scorches my skin, leaves scars

like efflorescence and keyholes that flicker

and glyphs that beg answers.

Dogs lie at my feet, their snouts a hairline

fractured width from singe.

Women curl their toes next to me.

Hang their smalls to dry on my frame.

Some of these I scorch

Just for the hell of it

And to let them know

I’m no pushover…

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

The Way of the Cross

There is a Cross on Bray Head.
And today, Good Friday, many will climb up to it.
Here is a poem I wrote on a May morning after my climb there.

The Way of The Cross 

In and out through the bright May gorse

Camera shutter opening and closing

Birds click their wings protecting

their young. I climb steadily

upwards.

Silence where the path snakes

to a bend -Where You stand

Awesome - Head-bowed pilgrims

at your feet.

I descend through coconut scented gorse

to the place where turquoise shallow begins

And stones, like prayers, rise to Heaven -

Pilgrims’ petitions on their Way

to the Cross.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Appeasement

A child caught up in sectarian violence.
We see their faces every day in newsreels.
Here is one such.
This is Northern Ireland 1964.

APPEASEMENT

I am ten

and there is blood on my hands

and the faces around me, even the jeering ones, are silent

and there is blood on my coat

and I can taste it in my mouth - I have licked wounds before

and know what blood tastes like: not sweet or salty, but sticky - if that is a taste

and the sea of faces parts

and I am watching them envy me

and it has been coming for weeks : arm- linked gangs, us and them,

and each claiming the footpath for themselves

but this time he broke rank and went for my throat before the chain broke

and I see my mother’s face

and black out

and when I awake my father is talking

and there is shame in his voice

and the boy’s father is here too

and the boy, his face not so close now, holds a box of chocolates in his hands

and he offers them stiffly, his body held back as if he is afraid of it

and my hand reaches out

and I say thank you.

For that is what they want now.

First published in Speaking for Sceine for the Kenmare Poetry Festival 2014

Sceine was the wife of Amergin, one of the mythological founders of the Irish people. See links below.

http://www.voicesfromthedawn.com/eightercua-alignment/

http://homepage.eircom.net/~kthomas/history.htm

http://www.carnegieartskenmare.ie/

The Elephant in the Room

Nobody likes to visit consultants, hospitals, surgeries, dentists etc

There is a medic speak that escapes me and leaves me feeling disempowered

So if I have to, and I can do it,  I take  a pen and write a poem or piece of fiction about it.

At least it distracts and even gives me a voice where I feel I have none.

Elizabeth Bishop has a great poem called In The Waiting Room.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/waiting-room

Here's a short one from me about a visit to a neurologist.

The Nerve Man

You talk of elephants in the room, emperor’s clothes,

riddles that you wield with your tongue

as you apply medieval instruments

to her hands and feet,

testing her perception of heat and cold,

taxing her brain with multiplications and subtractions,

divisions and word sequences repeated

backwards, forwards and ten minutes later.

You are bearded and only slightly stooped

but you have seen it all and bring all

the weight of your crude weaponry to bear.

The compass of your tools.

The foolproof mastery of your trade.

And with a final scrape of metal

on the soles of her feet

You tell her

It is all in her mind.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Making Waves & Cocktails

Out shopping I came across a giant, well 200gm , ball of HayField Rich Colour chunky in a bargain basket. Couldn't resist that.
But the pattern I wanted to try..the Wave Scarf...involves making holes, as well as waves.
Here it is in process. I don't know how long this scarf will take to make.
The pattern says, knit 3 balls-That's 150gm long! Seems like a lot to me.
And I  have a learnt distaste for dropping stitches and making holes deliberately.....
Need to get less uptight maybe...
For pattern details see pic below.

Meanwhile here's a poem about another type of frustration
It helps to know your cocktail terms for this one....

Happy Hour

You preferred a Rusty Nail to a Screwdriver in a Saint Louis Highball Glass

But your special favourite was a Corkscrew in a Double Old- Fashioned.

Shake well and strain into pre-chilled Double, then add a slice of lime.

When you left I didn’t need ice to chill it.

And every Friday night I mix, shake and stir

A jigger of frogs’ legs, thorns of birr

A pony of beetle-juice, dragon-scale light,

A twist of spittle and a dash of spite

Top with a Catherine wheel,

Add a wedge of venom peel

And there you have it

A Screw-U  

Inspired by a painting by Ian Humphreys for the Poets Meet Painters Competition.

http://www.ianhumphreys.ie/

http://www.writing.ie/writing-comps/poets-meet-painters-poetry-competition/

Recycling Wool

The cream Aran slouchy hat didn't shapeshift and did look like a tea cosy on the recipient's head.
So I recycled it into another plain hat with Pom Pom.
The Pom looks a bit curly.
But Given the journey this yarn has taken
that's hardly surprising...

Cooking with Nigel and Root Poetry

I haven't mentioned baking so far in this blog!
It's not that I don't bake ...it's just that it often tastes better than it looks and is eaten fast.
One of these days I will touch on the subject.

Today however I have to mention Nigel Slater.
I happened upon his cookery programme by chance and while needle clicking.
Had to drop the knitting, grab a notebook and take down the recipes.
His obvious delight in cooking is infectious and I found myself wandering into hitherto unchartered aisles
Lemongrass, juniper berries, smoked haddock et al,.. Stuff I'd never ventured to use.

Here's a recipe for Carrot and Coriander fritters which I have tried a few times and am always pleased with the result.

Put grated carrot, chopped coriander, chopped scallions in bowl.
Add beaten egg, grated Parmesan,flour and seasoning
Shape as fritters
Fry in oiled hot pan until golden brown
Top with chopped coriander.
And his tip ; don't fiddle with the fritters while they are cooking.

Back to poetry

I read a lovely volume Polishing the Evidence by Cecilia McGovern, available to buy from
Salmon Press.
http://salmonpoetry.com/
Cecilia has won several prizes and is a must read especially if you are from Mayo.
Her childhood days and experiences enthralled me and set me thinking of my townie background.
In Ireland most of us have close roots to a rural way of life but we lose a lot in a generational shift to urban fields.

So in response  here is  Town Graft

Town Graft

I wipe glandular silk spittle off a row of books

relegated to a mausoleum radial web of neglect.

Prise out one, retire to the sun and read poems

from a Mayo childhood. And feel regret 

that I recall nothing like this from my halcyon days.

A towny whose parents were supplanted from fields,

where clabar and poirins and gap-toothed hayrakes

and crop cycles may have meant something

To a council estate on a reclaimed swamp at the edge

of a market town ,where our fields were sweet shops:

Beatties, Mooneys, McKees and the Scrawggy sisters,

whose terraced front room windows sported cardboard cutouts

of Cadbury’s Milktray and Kellogg’s cornflakes and PG Tips.

Our roots became tarmacadamed and we lived in our heads,

Tuned to airwaves and commercials and pirate radio stations.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Knitting Update

knitting up-date.

I haven't given up on it.
But when I sit down to knit I am so resolute to finish the project (for project read-scarf-usually)
that I forget to get up
and
the fire goes out,
the phone goes to answering voice (or whatever it's called)
the dog scratches the door, gives up, returns to couch,
I watch drivel on the TV- one-eyed, and for far too long
I issue requests for tea to anyone who happens to pass by
And my back nudges, creaks and complains.
I finally get up stiff and lop-sided. Some days I stay that way.

It's an obsession for those naturally inclined to obsess- but hey it could be worse.
And anyway here's a slouchy ribbed hat from left over wool from another Aran cable scarf.
Pattern details...see Pic below and post Bending Rules
The hat looks a bit odd to me (dare I say- tea-cosy?)
but maybe when it makes contact with a head it will shape-shift.

Coming Home

Though I am a born townie I always come back from a weekend in the country with some regret. 

So here’s a poem written in my head on the way back from Galway, in an effort to delay the inevitable 

Coming home

When I hit Kinnegad

I image myself moving backwards

and Kinnegad becomes Athlone

and I am crossing the river

that marks the beginning of the West

And the Toll booth at Enfield

becomes the Battle of Aughrim

where General St Ruth lost his head

and the flight of the Wild Geese began

And this high rise metal bridge

marks the place where a lopped tree points

to the county rising field by field

 to Slieve Aughty

And at the turn off for the M50 South

I veer into country lanes and low lying bog,

late night ceili and free blackcurrant juice

hedgerows thick with yarrow and cowslip

and meadow sweet and fraughans

And I know I’m nearly home.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Garden Reflections

It's definitely Spring and garden time again.
 I am an enthusiastic gardener but without a lot of skill or know-how.
But here's an extract from piece I wrote for Ireland's Own on a climber I have.
If you want a vigorous climber this is the one to go for.

GARDEN REFLECTIONS – WHICH CLIMBER WHERE???

   Developing a relationship with a garden has, like all relationships, its benefits and hazards. And one such hazard is the early call to attend to its needs. Dispense with the digital alarm and awaken to the sound of pigeon coo, that odd sequence of notes that seems to stop mid bar.

   My garden has become an aviary since the demise of my black and white moggy and I have installed a stone bird table to encourage these winged newcomers. It is set beneath what I am told is the Green Man. A mischievous face set in concrete and available at many garden centres. He is like a Pan spirit whose main function is to encourage growth. I am sure that there are Saints I could pray to, but failing that I defer to Greek mythology on this matter. The Green Man hangs, like an overcast pool, against a backdrop of Cissus Striata, that promiscuous evergreen from South America that every gardener should revere.

   

Ivy of Uruguay, Cissus Striata, in its native clime provides fodder for Chilean cattle which browse contentedly on this fine textured vine. 

Acquiring such useless, if intriguing, gems of information becomes part and parcel of your daily routine once gardening takes its hold on you. And expect to dispel much idleness and spend many fruitful and fruitless hours googling in your attempts to discover the intricate and intimate secrets of unpronounceable Latin names.

   Planted in the South West corner of a minuscule patio I gave my Cissus strict instructions to 

camouflage the mundane eyesore of a pebbledash wall. The devious minx instead climbed sideways, in crablike fashion, coiling her tenacious, wiry tendrils in the direction of the oil tank. (You know, the big, brash, vulgar green plastic variety-ubiquitous impediment in every suburban backyard). Stealthily she crept behind, beneath and over the unsuspecting target, locking it in a straitjacket of vigorous, woody stems and succulent glossy green leaves. Her coarse toothed edges bit deep.

  

Seeing that the moment was ripe I quickly inserted a 6 by 4 foot trellis which is now locked in a grip so tight that I no longer fear for its stability. The tank also is greatly enhanced by this luxurious, if somewhat stifling, embrace. No doubt it wishes that it were a Chilean cow.  In autumn I expect to see the addition of black glossy pea like berries but am not tempted to graze on them.

  

Good Luck in the garden!

Westmeath Assault

A friend reminds me -Lighting fire is not always so easy to do
And we all have our different styles of doing it.
The adept can debate the relative efficiency of:
Rolled up newspaper versus scrunched up newspaper
Candle grease versus woodchip
Me, I usually throw in a half a packet of firelighters....

And anyway it's all in how you build it up, the gaps you leave, the gaps you fill, your understanding of the science of fire....

So here's another poem on lighting fires......

Westmeath Assault

for Aine

You swing your hips and swivel latches.

“This,” you explain, “is a damper.

It must be pulled out.”

With all the knowledge of Westmeath

you poke and pull and thrust, break firewood

with your feet, lay log upon log and watch.

The stove billows out grey wood-smoke.

Your nose dives beneath your smokescreen

of black polo-neck.

“This stove has no flue,” you announce.

“Or perhaps,” and you prod with chisel,

“it needs to be brushed out.”

You fling open windows and doors,

escape into the night air

and consult Orion.

First published in Speaking for Sceine Vol 11 2014 at the Kenmare Poetry Festival

Organised by Kenmare Arts Centre.

Check their website for exhibitions, events and competitions

http://www.carnegieartskenmare.ie/

A dying craft-lighting fires

My children can neither light fires nor drive.
I fear for them.
Or did.
But a recent visit to a younger friend's homes has brought me face to face with the lastest technology in house heating. Remote control lighted fires. Gas. And every bit the business!!
You can dim or brighten its flames at the proverbial press of a button, intensify or lesson heat without stirring a poker.
So no worries...

And as for cars? Self driven vehicles about to hit the Irish market?
I kid you not!
Autonomous, driverless, self driving, robot -driven, call them what you please.
They can "sense " the environment and "navigate" without your intervention , thank you very much!

And since robots are regulation compliant :
The end of road checks, breathalysers, traffic Gardai, traffic wardens, the taxi business,the Road Safety Authority, Gay Byrne et al ....

And since we purport to be the digital hub of Europe we should be leading the way, according to the  proponents of road autonomy.
To the transformation of our way of life, it has to be added...
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car

The word singularity creeps into the conversation.
I didn't know what it meant either
but to cut to the quick, its when artificial intelligence gets smarter than us...
and we are getting there...fast...

All a bit hair raising to me who am a late adaptor to everything.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

No poems on this phenomenon yet but one on the stove.
In the meantime here's one to celebrate the lighting of fire, hands on style, which is about to become an obsolete skill.

On Aging

Warming to the subject
you smooth the table-cloth
with long-sweep strokes
soothing, as you might, a child
all the while tending to two fires.

One , narrow and lean and aged, like you
generous in his showering of sparks
and heat and flame.

The other sluggish,petulant.
You coax and humour
carefully calculating the moment
to close flue, hoping
to drive her breath of fire
in wide-flung-circuit
around the belly of her.

She gasps, chokes, exhales wood-smoke
fails on the intake
You open flue again and wait.

This waiting comes with age
Tender of fires
And with these hands that sweep
and smooth and coax and tend
you ease your way towards
this, your crowning.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Open Sesame

I'm not much of a sketcher but one story I wrote did come out of a doodle.
I was attending one of those meetings where I had more interest in my shopping list than the agenda on offer so....
I took to doodling.
These scratches usually end up looking like a series of swirls and spirals
but this time a face in a balloon caught my attention.
 "And who are you??" I declared
The answer was a long winded rigmarole of a yarn that took a few weeks to unravel.

I published it on Amazon as an E-book as this is the quickest way to get a story out.
A friend of my daughters designed the cover from my doodle
And Hey Presto we were up and away on a journey to Ancient Greece.

The Blurb....

The  triple headed monster has been slain and the God Mars is on the warpath. If Sally doesn't perform her three tasks in Ancient Greece the warrior Cadmus will stay forever imprisoned in the hideous form of a snake, Sesame -Guardian of the Enchanted Tree.
Time is of the essence...
Join Sally in Ancient Greece
AND SEE WHERE THE MAGIC TAKES YOU...

See link.....www.Open Sesame

Too Much String

And on Mother's day a poem for mine
First published in Speaking for Sceine Vol 11
for the Kenmare Poetry Festival 2014

For My Mother

My mother says my granny spent time in the sanatorium

Every day she listened to pigeons cooing

“Eat more, poor things,” is what she heard them say

 My mother has feared madness all her life

Ask her what it means and she recalls

The Black Mariah and pigeons cooing

My granny gave my mother a bar of soap every year

for her birthday. My granny gave my mother away

when she was two

My mother scribbles the figure two and puts it inside a box

then draws a shape around it. The shape could be anything

but it looks like a ball of string

My mother keeps her pain wrapped up tight

Ask her what it is and she crouches

over it…too much string to unravel

Memoirs of An Accidental Busker

I don’t know what the average attention span of a blog reader is

but I suspect it is like mine…short.

I usually do short, 

but now and again a piece stretches beyond the confines of a poem in a mischievous fashion

So rather than let these yarns gather dust in a shoe box I will give them to you piecemeal in instalments if necessary…not too many!

 Memoirs of an Accidental Busker

   In the summer of ’77 I set off for London with a green canvas ex-US army sack on my back and a guitar strung over my shoulder. 

The sack which looked like a rolled up sleeping bag was a relic from Vietnam and belonged to a friend of a friend. It proved to be a useless carrier that all too often unfastened and leaked an array of High Street panty hose at inappropriate stages of my sojourn. The guitar was not mine. I was simply its courier and could hardly strum a chord. So there I was travelling out into the wide world under borrowed pretences to make my fortune.

   Somebody who knew somebody had secured a job for me in an International Hotel in Hammersmith; I was to wait tables and assist chef. But chef’s wife was heavily pregnant so I spent most of my time avoiding same chef whose suppressed libido was in heat. This avoidance called for skilful manoeuvrings on my part which left me at the rear end of the service tail-back during the lunch-crunch. Any friendly overtures from me and I might find myself pinned to the kitchen wall within arm’s reach of chef’s cleaver. So I walked a thin tightrope that long, hot, Hammersmith summer.

   The same friend of a friend was to relieve me of the guitar one day in Piccadilly Square but never materialised in the flesh. So I had to lug the thing through the London Underground back to the matchbox sized bed-sit that I shared with Hannah.

   She and I had been best pals at school where, within the narrow confines of classroom walls, our real compatibility was never tested. But here in the wide world of Hammersmith we quickly discovered each other’s limitations. Her Achilles’ heel related to her Polish boyfriend and she spent the summer hallucinating that I was trying to steal him. It was true that he followed me from work on my every shift and I began to suspect that his job in sales must be a figment of his imagination. I should say “stalked” rather than “followed” for he shadowed my every move and drove at Paparazzi distance behind me. Then after my dive into the cramped hallway of our digs and a leap up three flights of stairs I was treated to a serenade of insistent knocking until, out of desperation, I grabbed the guitar and drowned out the orisons of my unwanted suitor by tuneless strumming. Needless to say he only performed this serenade when Hannah was absent.

   Now this testosterone high that seemed to permeate Hammersmith that summer, and the fact that it gravitated towards me, had nothing to do with my looks and/or charm for I was a plain, gauche country girl. But perhaps it was that, my lack of guile, which piqued their interest. And, in truth, the chef and the Pole were characters who would have romped with aplomb in any of Henry Fielding’s sexual escapades through rural England: seducing servant girls, dairymaids and whoever they happened to chance upon….

   So I spent the summer dodging lascivious advances until I was worn thin. It was when another friend of a friend offered me a job in a chipper in Glasgow that I stuffed my ex-army bag with my now over-sized clothes, grabbed the guitar and headed for Heathrow. I did not even work my notice.

   My plane ticket clutched to my chest, my meagre savings stashed in my deflated cleavage, I sat glumly in the departure lounge surrounded by business suits. The plane was delayed by an hour, my fellow passengers grew restless and one of them began to make his tentative advances.

   I wondered if the friend of the friend ever would demand to have the guitar back and contemplated, for a second, landing it on this Lothario’s head. It was then that the hapless fellow revealed his intentions; would I give him a tune. 

The chorus was taken up by others and I fumbled hesitantly with the spectrum. A few strums later and a folksy tune began to emerge. The clank of coins falling at my feet and even the discreet rustle of notes that followed nearly distracted me from the men in black - the Airport Security Anti-Busker net that was beginning to tighten.

   At the first sound of a boarding call I gathered up my earnings and scrambled, panty-hose trailing, for my escape flight out of the Great Metropolis. 

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016    

Digging for poems

HERE ARE TWO VERY DIFFERENT POEMS INSPIRED BY GARDENING.

TO BOSTON IVY

I wish my writing was of a hardier sort

like Boston Ivy that clings without support

and never sheds its leaves and grows in any aspect.

I’d like to write like Boston Ivy

with my pink flush autumn success

shimmering on me.

Instead of which I cling

only when supported

like Clematis Armandi.

And sport my purple flowers

sparingly, singly

and sometimes not at all! 

On Making Garden

"This soil needs turned," you say.
"It is a spade job."
You suggest a pond or water channel.

To collect our tears in, I am thinking.
"I want flower beds," I say
To blazon forth in summer streaming

But for the moment we lie
decades deep dreaming
Weighed down by topsoil and grief

And in this dark and at this depth
We cannot see this garden in the making.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Visitors

Visitors of any sort are always fit subject for a narrative.
Here's a poem about a chance sighting of the unexpected
and the mental sojourn that ensued.....

If Anyone Could…

There were two of them on the road.

The headlamp picked them out.

Not in a bit of a hurry.

“Can I take a pic?” you ask.

Teens photo everything these days -

Not a second undocumented.

“No,” I say,

“Maybe they’ll still be there when you get back.”

The last I saw of them they were on the grass verge in front of Lulu’s-

She’d make short work of them.

The headlamp was on the blink-

It’s a wonder we spotted them at all.

It’s a wonder He didn’t notice his broken headlight

But He never notices anything-

Never replaces lids on jars, tubes, bottles-

His life one long endless 

Spill. I was thinking recipes on the way back-

Duck à l’Orange, Paté Fois Gras, stuff like that.

It would take a bit of skill to wring necks and pluck feathers.

And if Anyone could - He could.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

A Walk in the Park

And his version....

A Walk in the Park

Today a woman, not young, stopped me in the park.

She was cupping a fledging in her fingerless mittened hands. She didn’t know what to do with the bird. Take it home? Coddle it in a shoe box; lid hole-punched and replete with moist bread? Or set it in the hedge in the hope of its improbable re-instatement in the nest – if such existed.

I suppose she asked me because of my halting gait, as if my years might know.

The bird looked pleased enough with itself- no open-mouthed shock or fixed eye, its wings intact, peagreen/skyblue sinewed feathers.

“You’ve a way with nature,” I told her.

The only time I held a bird in my palm I was ten; it was a baby thrush that had fallen out in its nest among the hedgerows that lined the pathway to our front door.

“I don’t know why it doesn’t just fly,” I said and raised my hands in mock take-off.

Perhaps it was my tone of voice or my waving hands. At any rate the fledgling rose, then dipped, then rose again, clearing the bushes and landing on the topmost branch of an ash tree.

“Ha”! I exclaimed with the thrill of it.

And on we walked, the not so young woman and I, around the whole periphery of the park, talking together.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

In The Pink in the Park

A walk in the park woods will always throw up something...
pine cones to take home,
kindle sticks for the fire,
a branch of spring buds,
holly berries,
a stray dog,
a chat,
an encounter,
a friend,
a story.....

Here is her story.... His story follows tomorrow

More flash fiction than poem.

IN THE PINK.

He wore a pink tie. His beige shoes didn’t match his grey flannel trousers

and he was carrying an umbrella with a pointed ferrule and a long shaft -

with twelve stretchers at least.  

He just looked like he might know -an older man with a real umbrella –

bound to have some experience of it.

It’s a pity I didn’t look at him a bit harder -

You see, I could pass him again tomorrow

and if he isn’t wearing the pink tie

and if it isn’t raining. …

And I shouldn’t have said, “We’re early on the road.”

I must have sounded like one of those carers in the wards, in the homes, even on the streets, who address everybody in the first person plural, when they really mean you.

But I didn’t mean him, I meant us, both of us. 

I’d remember his hands though -big hands - capable.

And when he raised them and said what he did I thought of a priest

calling on the congregation to stand for the gospel

What was it he said?

And as if summoned,

the injured bird took flight right out of my cupped hands -

Its beak no longer frozen in open mouthed fright

And we watched it rise, then dip, then rise again

And then he walked on

I should have told him I liked the pink tie.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016