Poetry Introductions 2017 Application | Sarah Padden
Ten Poems
Keening
These days of cabins
and fires without a grate of restraint
of mountain roads split by grass
of small windows framing sheep
gathered under reaching trees
in stone-walled dells,
are nearly gone.
These last days slip away unremarked
like spring water
from your untended well
overrun with reeds and mire.
What was once sacramental, ennobled
now flushes away quartz-slabs
mutating the yard into sucking mud
around your endangered home.
These decaying days of undying rain driven into
rotting thatch split chimney
from hearth
dampening the fire for the first time
since your father carried the flame
from his birthplace.
Those days were recasting you for wilderness.
We witnessed your last hours on bog
you were born into
whilst jackdaws murmured above you
ice and fog shrouded Nephin
to ensure you were not taken to modernity
on a cold trolley
then interred on St. Joseph’s to slip away
unnoticed behind a thin curtain.
Independence Story
...and awaken in modernity, not only the gold leaf
continuation of giant
sprung - pillowed waves, bashed green then
sphagnum - squeezed onto Céide,
but rows of placed rocks and stones
ever- island in the ocean of half-mercury bog,
an expansive Lir-land beyond and before
the annals of lore
calling sixteen 16s and 5,000 of them
to return to Céide’s green white gold lichen
to slip over or reverb
into crawing rock splits.
rebirthing daughters; re-sounding
and realigning warped time.
Recur emerald
alone in the Gulf Stream Lir-storm...
Frack the North
Standing amongst remnants of Rievaulx Abbey, I’m searching
for the archaic but there’s a whole new dialect
amongst the cloudberry and bracken.
-
Incessant drilling deadens sheep and Snipe acoustics
gas flares illume derrick trees, even the rocks
have shifted, no longer immutable
-
against fissures forced to
~~~~~~~~~rupture and run like
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~a thread underground.
-
I thought I’d preserved the past under a dressed-stone
window sill, adorned with lichen flowers
which held pots of sweet William
-
but it was flung far from here
and there is no finding it now,
after the earthquake.
-
I heard it could be in Gouthwaite reservoir,
in poisoned silt more toxic
than the Dead Sea.
Brother, Dear
If I were to assemble you from scratch
I’d begin by making you last
to emerge from our communal womb
by five or six years, so you can’t sulk
your way to middle child resentment
-
I’d turn you into a girl called Lollie
whose passions are crochet and ballet,
for tranquillity you grow artichokes
and weed an herbaceous border,
pondering life through your telescope
-
In a cupboard you’ll have exotic teas
gathered in Bhutan, en route
to relocate in the Outer Hebrides,
reassembled: you’re an earth mother
brother, with a brood of barefoot brats
Ciúnas, Le Do Thoil
To survive one must understand one’s place:
For instance, the _______* (insert antagonist) must be silent, must accept the omniscience of those entrusted with the seal of the red pen, who have already achieved the high standard of Unseeing, having been invested as philosophers in the art of ciúnas at a slow processional ceremony in the Aula Maxima. For ______s who aspire to that elevated position where they can exercise their innate brutality, unimpeded, their first test is compliance and in shrinking back to protect the self no matter what they may see. There is no personal advantage in breaking the omniscient’s code. Nothing good ever comes from speaking out against ciúnas. This is your first lesson in post-truth.
Naturally, the ______’s reaction is to resist at first, even dogs and monkeys understand the concepts of fairness and nepotism but the dark-art professors would argue that initiating resentment is crucial in maintaining silence. They invest their office hours into _________s willing to assimilate into the Primacy, at the first test. Eager ______s are referred to in the paradigm as early adopters whilst more advanced practitioners learn techniques of explaining away and selective hearing, both crucial skills of Unseeing. Neo-rhetoric is taught at introductory weekend retreats which also include silent meditation. ________s are preened by their fellow retreatants, their nits and ticks squished whilst resting in the contentment of shared silence, certain that their fellow _______s are enfolding each other into compliance and not sacrificing them to inner-truth.
Those that resist will later or sooner be brought before the secret tribunal which is spun as ‘counter-ciúnas enforcement’. Of course, the rules are written by Chancellors - those most proficient dark-art lords and the ____________ is judged in absentia in the manner of witches’ trials without representation, as the ______ will be found guilty and should a __________ not submit to the ruling they will be left in a silent room until they conform to post-truth ciúnas.
Aegis of Remembrance
The slim road to Fanore
near Dereen
pulled out of the headland
like orange peel,
the kind of place you’d like to
have taken a drive to see
on a Sunday afternoon.
Malham Cove, in the Dales
was a Sunday spin which
reminded you of The Burren
and now I see too
twenty-one years since your passing,
and though we were never
here together
the god of remembrance is reflecting
the ocean into our heart cave
of limestone pavements,
illuminating my now.
A Proclamation
Be a child, always
ride your bike downhill over dandelions and daisies
-
become an angel on deep snow-days
hide in the tree canopy during soft rain
-
build a den with an abracadabra door
let go of the rope swing over the lough
-
fly a kite on the strand in January
dance about the campfire in July
-
soar a mile above bright white clouds then
bounce on their sunny-side.
-
Be a child, be cherished
and when you are aged
-
cuddle up on the couch in your jim-jams
listening to stories of the day you were born
In Praise of Trinity
I thought you were the altar statue, Peter-God
peering down from your plinth in solemnity
a fossil with ornate keys and a carved beard
a ‘wait till your father gets home’ distant Daddy
-
until Rublev’s icon of your immense banquet
equal and empathic, with a place for seekers
like open Russian dolls, unveiled an intimate
hygge between the Divine and human creatures.
-
My static statue of childish concepts smashed
into atoms does not disprove your presence since
psalmists only need look at the moon and stars
to ask why are You so mindful of us? The liminal
why in response to the twitch of the fish hook.
Connaught Ranger
June 1917
We woke in death in the mud of Messines
with cramped fingers around metal muzzles
sullen as the soaking summer skies,
carrion crows screeched in no man's land
all night, like boy soldiers hoping to be heard
quickly gathered and tagged, we were buried
like knackered horses in bare earth.
In letters home I'd asked - whose war is this?
-
I dreamt unknown son of my daughter
that in the shadow of the round tower
in Belgian fields stuffed with British graves,
our Irishness conjoined. You came with poppies
at last, after the hundred-year shame had passed
to reclaim me and concede, that I too fought
to cherish all the children of the nation.
Wrestle the Angel at Peniel
And never cease yearning
Acclimatise to frayed desires
Then accept the unruly flux
-
Embrace
-
Then accept the unruly flux
Acclimatise to the frayed desires
And never cease yearning
-
Endure
-
And never cease yearning
Acclimatise to your frayed desires
Then accept the unruly flux
-
Transform
-
Then accept the unruly flux
Acclimatise to your altered desires
And never cease yearning
Sarah Padden | Co. Galway | Poetry Ireland Introduction Series 17th February 2017