Reclaiming

This was written for a Poets Meet Painters Competition. 
It was inspired by a painting by contemporary Irish  artist Nicola Slattery titled Sleeping Woman. 
Unfortunately I have no image of the painting, but you can check out her website or google Nicola Slattery.
Nicola Slattery images

Reclaiming

Wrapped in a patchwork

the woman dreams of a farm divided

from son to son

and crafts it whole again.

Its boundaries and banks neatly stitched,

she works the soil into holdings of forest and fallow

and russeted crop and verdant green pasture

and, in places, bright crimson petals boldly sewn.

And in this way she claims back

 a daughter’s inheritance denied.

The only sheep she can tend, the ones she counts,

as she falls asleep at night.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017

Am going through a fallow period-
 I did knit a super chunky jumper. Made a lot of mistakes but my daughter is lying on the couch  looking very snug in it. Am about to start a scarf. Something quick and easy.
life's like that. ...not always as fluid and inspirational as you would like.
flat as a pancake, a calm sea.... here's hoping for a few waves soon.
Meanwhile some colour meditation chakra poems.

yellow-solar plexus chakra. to do with will.



deserts long
dunes high
back drop to sun-gods
and sun worshippers
yellow
it goes straight to the head.

Away with The Fairies.

When I read this article I thought of Robert Frost's Mending Wall, to which my response is deeply indebted.
http://www.irishnews.com/news/2017/08/09/news/td-danny-healy-rae-blames-fairies-for-kerry-road-dip-1105238/

It's been getting great coverage in the news.
https://www.todayfm.com/Editors-Pick/Away-With-The-Fairies-


Mending Road

Something there is that loves a dip in the road
That sends the ground swell under it
And makes a hollow even two cars cannot pass abreast.
No-on has seen it made or heard it made.
But in the morning it is there.
And on a day agreed the Council came
With diggers, more than one, to repair it.
At a cost to the tax-payer of forty thousand euro.
But when they turned their backs it was there again.
"There's something in these places you shouldn't touch."
"Sacred," he would say. "Is it the work of fairies?"
They say in their defence,
" It's a deeper underlying subsoil geo-technical problem."
But they'd rather he would say it for himself.
They see him there, like an old stone-savage armed.
"I'd rather starve than knock a fairy fort!"
He will not go behind his father's back
And likes having thought of it so well he says it again.
Something there is that loves a dip in the road.
"Is it the work of fairies?"

Manchester by the Sea

“Where is this going ?” is my usual wail five minutes into any movie. I’m a pain to sit with. 
But half an hour into the movie Manchester by the Sea, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan 2016, and I was still asking.

Casey Affleck was dragging his famous drawl through the script. His lack lustre body language, except when sprung into violent action, was in keeping with the drawl. He plays the part of a Boston janitor , a jack of all trades, who performs tasks as various as plumbing, electrics and shovelling snow. Of course there is going to be a disgruntled, rude tenant. And Casey/Lee is not renowned for keeping his cool.

So we have a character, dull of expression, dull of tone- until you press his buttons, and then wham!
It’s not that original. The sulky angry young man? Brando did it. James Dean did it. Ryan Gosling had a fair whack at it. John Osborn in 1956 staged it. 
SO, did I want to sit up to midnight to unravel the angsts of another angry young man?

And then there were the flashbacks, fairly persistent and disruptive. In truth, I’m not much into flash back. Give me a tale told straight. Linear - my preferred direction. I know it makes the viewer work harder, makes them have to scramble about…and, indeed, the story was so dull it was at least ... a diversion …

Well, to make a sad story short, I headed off to listen to my Pema Chodron tapes instead. A review of them to come on another day.

It's fair to say that I’m a prejudiced biased observer. I don’t need car chases, or swash buckling heroes, though I am partial to both. And, in spite of all the fishing scenes in the early screen shots, I failed to be hooked.

For a positive review read the link below. It did receive Oscars I think?
And I didn't, after all ,watch it to the bitter end.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/12/manchester-by-the-sea-review-casey-affleck-kenneth-lonergan

The Sea Eagle

During the Open Sea Swim Season, as in now, a couple of amateur photographers, to the delight and sometimes dismay of race participants, snap pics and post them on the Leinster Open Sea facebook page. Here's a flavour of what happens....

https://www.facebook.com/leinsteropensea

THE CATCH

He scans the ocean waves

His clear eye discerning the perfect frame

The most jaded, the most compromised

Dragging themselves to shore

Where his telescopic vision

Pinions them to his reel.

Sometimes he captures all of us

Waves slowing us down

Bending us

To the centre of his gaze.

Or scouring among spectators, he snaps 

Incipient lovers, indifferent infants,

Shysters who cannot evade his scrutiny.

Scoops to add to his lair;
His facebook eyrie.

And afterwards we are glad.

Glad of this calibrating and combining of elements

That snatch these moments in time

And preserve for us these memories.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017

The 10 Worst Habits of Irish Hotel Guests

STILL SCOURING THE PAPERS FOR ITEMS THAT WILL TRIGGER A RESPONSE- HOPEFULLY CREATIVE.....

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/ireland/the-10-worst-habits-of-irish-hotel-guests-1.3170160

The 10 Worst Habits of Irish Hotel Guests

1-Chicking Fingers?

How does that go?
"Ansin buachaill!"
Haven't tried that....

2-The Silent Charge?

For soiled sheets?
Torn linen?
General mayhem?
Never went on a Hen...
Sad life...

3-Taking Food from the Breakfast Buffet?

Guilty your honour as charged
Stocking up for elevenses, lunch 
and an unforeseeable future famine....

4-The Very- Hard- to -Please- Guest?

Possibly...
Can't see the sea from here!
Want a room with a view!
And Daniel Day Lewis too!


5-Hanging out in Corridors?

Naked?
Sex in fire escapes?
Haven't lived yet- clearly.

6-Smoking in Bed?

Nicotine or marijuana?
Compromised airways
Can't even inhale air
Properly

7-Scamming for a Freebie?

There's a used condom, injection pen,
Alien (not used) in my room!!!
Never thought of it.....
Does it work?????

9-Professional Complainer?

Firing off on social media?
Or Trip Advisor?
Or blogging?
Enough said...

10-Leaving Embarrassing Items Behind?

Sex toys?
Underwear?
Alcohol?
Never alcohol.....

But What About the Prosthetic Leg?

No one saw him leave
And he never returned for it!

A No- Brainer......

Jimmy's Hall

I'd never heard of Jimmy Gralton. But PIC of the week Times Present in The Irish Times caught my attention. And Ken Loach has made a film about the only Irish man to be deported from his own country- for building a Dance Hall.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/jimmy-gralton-a-deported-irishman-s-return-1.1806775
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/abbey-theatre-to-stage-premiere-outside-dublin-for-the-first-time-1.3130044


The Abbey Players
are taking to the boards
in the fields of Leitrim

To revive the fellow
who told us
not to listen to the Angelus.

In the year of the Eucharistic Congress
Ireland, Nineteen Thirty -Two,
he was hailed as an undesirable alien

Hunted like a deer
Caught and trapped. Deported
on a steamer bound for New York State.

They burnt down his hall.
The left no records.
They wanted no paper trails.