The Byre at Milking Time

Here's one I ve tried to get down ...

Summer Winter Autumn Spring
We'd bring that train of cows in
Tails a-swishing cuds a-chewing
The slap and plop of cow dung murdered the yard
The chorus of chains, shaken heads bowed in prayer
Munching yesterday's summer grain

The nimble flick twixt head and tail kept flies afar
The suck and pump of the stainless steel sump
Stole white gold from bloated sacs

Uncle stood stooped, one hand on haunch
We stood back one step safe from fear
Uncle Joe, cap cocked and crushed
by fifty graying summer suns

and we drank of wit and wisdom
40 sheep went through the gap
That’s the rhyme I call to mind

40 sheep went through the gap
40 followed after 6,7, 10,11
Two and three how many’s that?
Two and three how many’s that?

The pump sucked no more
The slither of chains fell to the floor
The back byre door scudded open
Crippled by layers of caked cowdung ,
Creaking, the fading summer sun

The swishing train headed out
The dart and dip of the sudden swift
Rising in, rafter high , arrowing out
To a brighter winter sky

Poetry Cafe

We did the Poetry Cafe gig on a damp July Saturday in Covent Garden.

I came on as the third performer.

I did six pieces , two of Seamus Heaney's opening with 'Clearances 3' and finishing with 'Death of a Naturalist'- my four pieces 'Butler's Bridge' ' And I Awake' , 'And we were Kings' & 'And we were Boys' , slotted in smoothly , with a brief introdcution to each.

A bit nervous at the start, I slowed the tempo and pace down so people could savour each word, each phrase, each picture.

You could have peeled the atmosphere off at the end it was 'thick and heavy headed'

I was humbled by people's comments -thank you.

First Utube....

Michael & Mary

I met Michael comimg out of the Care Home
A quiet snowflake of a man white and heavy haired
His wife is in a coma ' so it would be no use reading her poetry"
An Irishman alone with his life cases of memories.

I will dedicate ' Butlers Bridge ' to Mary & Michael on my debut reading.
and hope the words fall softly on her brow
and the sun shine warm upon her face

Watford Library Wed 24 July 7.30 - 10 pm
Central Library Hempstead Road Watford WD17 3EU

See u there or until we meet again may your God go with you.

Clearances by Seamus Heaney

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives--
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

© 1987 Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

You ve got to listen to this man - here's his verse and
opposite my reading.

Cant you just slip into that deep world..?

DEATH OF A NATURALIST

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart

Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
 Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

© 1987 Seamus Heaney