I hear a Fly buzz when I sit-
To meditate- and think of Emily
And how- put out she may
have been- when that Blue-
Stumbling fly- immortalised
In her Poem-591
Interposed between her-
And Eternity.
Today-Someone would tell her-
It was doing her a Favour-
Keeping her present-
In the Present-
Where she still was-after all-
But I get it-Emily-
The darn Drone of it
Would turn a dying Saint-
Into a Murderer-
Or at least- a Fly Catcher-
Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026
if you want to ponder the meaning of life
for here there are no distractions to withstand.
And though I am now sitting in a bungalow
in a capital suburban sprawl-
No Atlantic swell to throw up
flotsam-jetsam wisdom from the deep.
No howling onshore wind crumbling the waves.
No sea mist veiling and unveiling the Skelligs
and its story of viking raids and monastic contemplation.
Just the DPD fellow making another delivery
and a woman out walking her reluctant schnauzer
and a great kerfuffle in the back kitchen
where the cat has just dragged
a fledgling magpie through the cat flap
and is now beginning to regret his bravado.
Making me, right elbow placed on left thigh,
back of right hand supporting chin,
ponder the folly of instinct
untempered by foresight.
The theme of this collection is home. I grew up in Northern Ireland during the fifties and sixties. The troubles were already brewing during my childhood and finally erupted onto the streets in '68. On August 24th I attended the first civil rights march from Coalisland, my father's home town, to Dungannon where we lived in a council estate. In fact I remember, as a school girl, delivering leaflets advertising the event.
The aim of the march was to highlight discrimination in housing allocation in our area. Follow link below for the full story.
Here is a piece on the subject written as a sort of Haibun
A Haibun is a Japanese genre that mixes autobiographical writing with Haiku.
Five pointers
KEEP PROSE SIMPLE
USE SPARSE IMAGERY
EVOKE THE SENSES
USE THE PRESENT TENSE
THE HAIKU/S CAN BE INSERTED ANYWHERE BUT SHOULD ADD MEANING
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-haibun-poetry
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-haiku-in-4-easy-steps#quiz-0
THE SKIPPING ROPE
It is a
mean spirited town. At its heart the burnt out remains of O’Neill’s Castle smoulder.
scorched earth policy
employed throughout history
our culture erased.
Centuries
later and the town cry is still, “No Surrender!”
Buildings
have eyes. As I stand at McAleer’s corner eating Pagni’s chips out of vinegar
sodden newspaper, watching cats in the family hotel basement window, I
feel their presence. Panoptic surveillance emanating from the RUC barracks at
the top of the Square, bolstered by the Ulster bank beside it, and higher up
British armoured towers,
iron clad, cube shaped set to watch
we the occupied.
In 1968 the
town is a battle ground flanked on two sides by council housing estates: the
Ponderosa and the White City, pebble dashed rows and blocks built at right
angles to each other on low lying bogs, inhabited by the poorest of both
denominations who qualified for these after doing time in the vacated POW camp
out the Moy Road. Working class protestants
occupy more salubrious zones to the south, Milltown and Moygashel, where red
brick industrial cottages nestle at the foot of the Windmill Hill or around
the linen factory, Dungannon’s industrial sector.
Bigotry runs deep in the runnels, in the rills, in the streams and the air we breathe will soon smell of metal and burning flesh. The town is tense
like a skipping rope
strung tight between two players
Irish and Scottish
And we wait for one of them to tighten grip
or loosen hold.
