The first I saw of Sligo
that chilly night in June
was the Cathedral’s tower
beneath a bright full moon.

Whichever forces drew me
were powerful and strong:
I’d finally encountered
the feeling to belong.

Their breasts are white, their necks are long,
they're noble and they're free,
so dark and serious their eyes
that keep their mystery.

As nude as God created them
they swim the Sligo Bay,
but there's a swan most beautiful
I'll never see that way.

Restless waves pet the cliff where the graveyard
is creating a life of its own,
and the April winds blow through the ruins
of the church at Killaspugbrone;
and the clouds gather over the grassland
that so leniently covers the dead,
and each daffodil, lifeless and withered,
is despondently hanging its head.

But the sun finds his way through the nimbi
like the silk moth that breaks through the floss,
and a skylark sits perched on a gravestone,
and it merrily sings on the cross;
before long it ascends to the heavens,
but I still hear its voice from the skies
as it sings of that day of redemption
when the dead and the daffodils rise.

When, God forbid, a newborn dies
before a cleric can baptise
them, they're, unbaptised and unblest,
outside the churchyard laid to rest,
where in unconsecrated ground
their souls by God can not be found.
They wander through the wilderness
and take along all those, I guess,
who step upon their piece of sod
which locals call a shifting scrod.

When husbands come home late at night
to angry wives who start a fight,
they calm them in a soothing voice:
'I didn't gamble with the boys,
and I'm not drunk, I swear to God:
I stepped upon a shifting scrod.
Through time and space I, led astray,
have lost my mind and lost my way
till after such unsought sojourn
by grace of God I could return.'

Many a man they did enthral,
and some have not returned at all,
but those who have had altered lives,
estranged their children and their wives
and live their lives for all it's worth
in limbo right here on this earth,
while no one reckons where they'll stay
once God has held his Judgment Day.
No peace will come to him who trod
carelessly on a shifting scrod.

You watched over your Queen and gave
your best to let her rule the wave
and all it is enclosing;
how does it feel, oh ancient brave,
when cows are gazing on your grave?

You have been fighting for Queen Maeve
when men and women didn’t shave
nor trimmed their hair for fashion;
how does it feel, oh ancient brave,
when cows are grazing on your grave?

You have been resting in your grave
for many thousand years and save
your strength for her arrival;
how does it feel, oh ancient brave,
when cows are lazing on your grave?

Framed by gorsed fields and evergreen
coppices thriving in the cool,
there lies a prehistoric scene:
the stony shore of Lough Nasool,
the lake that every hundred years
mysteriously disappears.

Between the hillocks you will find,
too grand to be interned by words,
another world to seize your mind,
teeming with copious fearless birds:
swallows swoop down before your eyes
and larks shoot up into the skies.

Hoof prints of generations show
this is a place of Life; a lot
of those who visit do not know
that there are times when it is not,
when you can see the lake’s demise
in a deserted paradise.

Here Balor of the Evil Eye
was slain, the God of Death; this ground
absorbed the poison of his eye
that dries out everything around
centurially, so we’d recall
that Death is living after all.

But in the Year of the Quiet Sun,
three score ten years before its time,
in one large cloud the lake was gone
and sought a Continental clime
to christen a poet across the sea
and call him to his destiny.

Grotesque mountains enclose the green valley
where the mills of Collooney once stood,
grinding corn for oppressed and oppressors
at the river that runs through the wood.

And the waters still flow through the village,
and the wood and the mountains endure
where the tireless mills of Collooney
once were feeding the rich and the poor.

But the wheels are removed and stand idle
like a church bell deprived of its chime
as the tireless mills of Collooney
have been ground by the Mill of Time.

Blue was the river that rolled by
and blue the sky above,
an open welcome caught the eye:
that's where I met my love.

Now doors and windows are nailed shut,
grey is the sky above,
the tired river grumbles, but
it's where I met my love.

The sun smiles brightly from the bluest skies:
this is the day to seize the day,
and so I walk along the busy road
to drink the beauties Life provides.

Ignoring all impatient motorists
I breathe the air of wood and sea,
and with the poet's heart I strongly feel
the power of the quiet things.

The cragged mountains are all dressed in firs,
in grass and broom, and far and near
there's daisies flanking streets and little brooks
and bluebells ringing in my eyes.

And after miles and miles I reach the lake
whose beauty crowns the pleasant walk,
sit down beside the water and refresh
my senses and my tired feet.

Soon two mute swans enjoy my company,
while every now and then some cars,
trespassers from a poorer world, rush by,
but pass too fast to break the peace.

And on I walk to see the waterfall
that's coming down the ancient rock:
the vibrant waterfall is grey with youth,
the ancient rock is green with age.

A tourist brings his family: he puts
them all beside the waterfall
and takes a snapshot, then they turn around
to hurry to another sight.

Barbed wires separate me from the brook
that's leading to the waterfall,
but I have climbed barbed wires all my life
to get the fragrance of this world.

And in the silence of the little stream,
surrounded by the whisp'ring trees,
uniting with the forces of the earth,
I rest and let my spirit roam.

Potato blight in Ireland – we all know what that spells:
not just the spuds are blighted since we have nothing else!
Who still has strength to labour, if just for bed and board,
is tending well-fed cattle to feed his British Lord.
But do not feel disheartened to know our fate is sealed,
for soon we shall be resting in Widow Touhy’s Field.

All those who can afford it sail to the Promised Land
or the invader’s country to feed their people, and
will anxiously be waiting for news with bated breath,
grateful for all his children who didn’t starve to death.
But you and I are going where walls of earth will shield
us from the coming turmoil in Widow Touhy’s Field.

The fancy folk are buried amongst the gulls and swans:
the Catholics in the Abbey, the others in St John’s,
where monumental coffins protrude from shallow ground
and ancient skulls and bodies lie scattered all around.
But we shall hear sweet music when harvesting our yield,
and crows will be our consort in Widow Touhy’s Field.

Right at the foot of Knocknarea
the ramblers hesitate:
hidden amongst the thicket stands
a rusty iron gate.

It looks like it is leading nowhere,
but there’s a path that will
show you a world outside this world
where Time and Earth stand still.

Thatched by enormous trees that witnessed
the Dawn of Humankind,
the Glen reveals a rugged beauty
that captures eye and mind.

Dwarfed by the soaring walls through which
you glimpse at distant skies,
you feel that in the undergrowth
there are a thousand eyes.

Wading through grass and mud, you quickly
sense with each breath anew
the presence of the Little People
who keep their eyes on you.

Although they hide and will not show
themselves to any man,
you know you’re closely being watched by
the Fairies of the Glen.

And as you leave this magic place,
it whispers in the fern:
‘All those who don’t disturb our peace
are welcome to return!’

The August sun unclosed his gates
and smiled on Sligo Bay
where six young women from the States
enjoyed their holiday.

It wasn’t since their childhood that
they saw their native land,
and with a blithe innocuous chat
they sauntered towards the strand.

And there they all tied back their curls,
preparing for a swim,
when an old man approached the girls,
his mien upset and grim:

'Don't swim today! No one is safe;
out on the sea, not far
from here I saw a dark black wave -
the Death Wave of Cuil Irra!'

The women giggled, and they said:
'Old men are so naive -
there's not a myth or legend that
these folk would not believe!'

And as the sound of his heavy boots
was slowly fading away,
they slipped into their bathing suits
and headed for the bay.

One stayed behind - she didn’t heed
the others who’d beseech
her to join in; she’d sit and read
and watch them from the beach.

And further out, and further out
they ventured like the erne:
they didn’t hear their comrade shout
who urged them to return.

And where the water nymphs abide
in the shadow of Queen Maeve,
they saw a tall blonde lady ride
upon a sombre wave.

Her hair was shining like the sun
that framed her naked breasts,
and with her gentle smile she won
the affection of her guests.

Her eyes were blue as is the sea,
the spray pearled off her skin
as she commanded: ‘Come with me
to the Island of Maguin!’

The women watched her, willingly
and keenly following,
but halfway to the island she
became a different thing.

Her golden locks turned into snakes,
foul scales appeared beneath
her waist, and like a row of stakes
she showed her canine teeth.

The frightened women turned away
in terror, and they fought
to escape her grip, but soon the bay
claimed what it long had sought.

And seconds later they were gone
to share the icy grave
of all who e’er laid eyes upon
the Sorceress of the Wave.

No one encountered her of late;
she hides from sun and star,
but somewhere she still lies in wait –
the Death Wave of Cuil Irra!

There is a wood on Knocknarea below the lofty grave
of someone who (as people say) will come again: Queen Maeve.
Each votary who climbs the hill puts on her mound a stone,
and when the number's full, she will rise to reclaim her throne.

And in the thicket of that wood where no man dares to stroll
(and, let me tell you, no man should), there, in a hidden hole
a dragon lives beneath a yew, begotten by her spell,
who has been seen by very few, and fewer live to tell.

He guards the cairn with watchful eyes; if anyone comes near,
he lifts his head and slyly spies on those who have no fear,
and if they bring a stone and bow before the Queen of Man,
he will unraise his scaly brow, lie down and sleep again.

But someone who disturbs the peace of her reposing bones
by climbing up the mound he sees or by removing stones
kindles the frenzy of the brute; at once the dragon will
take a deep breath and blow the crude intruder down the hill!

And on the open plateau he'll be pierced by stones of hail,
and, fleeing towards the wood, he'll feel the dragon's mighty tail
smashing his skull against the boles of ancient trees; a sharp
pain is endured by him who rolls down the precipitous scarp!

And if the beast should get irate, there's no one he would spare -
he will arise and desolate the land around his lair,
he'll whip the bay round Knocknarea to make its waters swell;
the two-faced ocean will obey by drowning beach and dell.

Many a man has paid the price for braving pow'rs of yore,
but those of us who met him twice will still come back for more!

Two score two years ago, the summer I
was born, not e’en a little pool
remained where, out of turn, a lake went dry:
they’d pulled the plug on Lough Nasool.

One score one year ago, the summer I
first came to Sligo was quite cool,
yet, out of turn, the mystic lake went dry:
they’d pulled the plug on Lough Nasool.

This summer I keep wondering about
the coming lesson in Life’s school,
for something’s up, of this I have no doubt:
they pulled the plug on Lough Nasool.

At dusk, when the shadows are falling
under street lights in Doorly Park,
you pause as you hear someone calling
your name through the trees in the dark;
turning round, you will notice the funny
physique of a pitiful rogue
who asks for a smoke and some money
at the banks of the Garavogue.

The wind picks up breath, and you shiver
besides the stream and stand still
near the islet astern of the river
where the waters approach from Lough Gill.
A boatman is cursing the weather
and casts out his homemade drogue
as the ominous storm clouds gather
o’er the banks of the Garavogue.

In the distance you hear the fright’ning
thunder rolling to mark his domain,
accompanied by the first lightning.
In seconds you’re drenched by the rain,
and as the thunder comes nigh, go
as quick as you can in your brogue,
and return to the shelter of Sligo
from the banks of the Garavogue.

The pubs have closed their doors, and people stay
at home. The town is still, the streets deserted,
the daunting silence echoes from the hills:
none dare disturb the calm before the storm.
The storm would come? It always came before,
this time will be no different. – One holds one’s breath
and quietly prays behind drawn curtains.

The town awaits a funeral tomorrow:
a man whose death will waken vengeful spirits
and bring to life the demons of the present,
the future and the past. Today arrives
the violently grieving family.
He will be laid to rest tomorrow morning,
the town to unrest in the night.

Dawn breaks. One listens to the news: last night
an empty house was burnt, and there have been
a few small fights. - The funeral, however,
is yet to come; the Gards have seized some weapons
that had been hidden in the cemetery.
Still, all is passing off without a battle:
this time, one thinks, we got off lightly.

But this is not the end of it. Give it
a week or half a year, and we shall see
another funeral; for everyone
they kill, two of the others have to die,
continuing the cycle of death, tradition
of two large families who have no purpose
save that of killing one another.

Where herons stalk the playful fish
in the waters of Lough Gill,
there sleeps a densely wooded isle
of calm where time stands still.

They’ve called it Beezie’s Island since
the aging widow came
to live here, and not many folk
recall its proper name.

To get her pension, she would row
to town, and afterwards
you’d find her in the kitchen where
she’d sit and feed the birds.

The robins, squirrels, crows and swans
who ate out of her hand
and every animal around
considered her their friend.

All visitors were welcome who
respected Beezie’s pets,
and only one of them got barred
for throwing stones at rats.

When blizzards raged throughout the spring
of forty-seven, she
stayed on her island though she knew
how risky it would be.

The frozen lake had cut her off;
the smoke soon ceased to rise
from Beezie’s chimney, and her friends
sought ways to bring supplies.

Guardai and locals hired a truck
to haul a boat and fill
it with some firewood, coal and food
at the shoreline of Lough Gill.

A dozen men carefully pushed
the boat across the lake,
ready to jump aboard in case
the fragile ice should break.

Huddled in sheets between her cat
and dog they found the old
lady; her pets had died before
of hunger and of cold.

Taken to Sligo General,
she soon became a star:
to meet the Lady of the Lake
folk came from near and far.

One evening, just outside the door,
as Beezie fetched her comb,
she heard a nurse suggesting they
should put her in a home.

Beezie discharged herself that night
and rowed back to her isle
where she had breakfast with the friends
she’d missed for quite a while.

Though over ninety, she was full
of vigour and of wit;
she did not suffer from old age,
nor did she die of it:

One Christmas season, as so oft,
some of her friends from town
came to cut wood for Beezie’s fire
and found her house burnt down.

No one has dwelt upon the lake
since the old lady’s gone,
but in all things that crawl and fly
her spirit still lives on.

In the days of Seamus McLaughlin
we would wait in the back of his bar
till the man himself was descending
to sit with us and tune his guitar.
And he'd carefully stick his burning
cigarette between peghead and strings,
and soon his plectrum was flying
like a hummingbird spreading his wings.

Every night was a musical journey,
and through space and time we would fly,
from the Hotel California
to the Fields of Athenry.
And he'd pass his guitar on to others
who wanted to play. We'd hear songs
sung in Basque, Swahili and Irish
at our cheerful singalongs.

Towards the end he would ask the young poet
for his Ghost Riders in the Sky
(or at least the few lines he remembered),
and as the evening rushed by,
he might call for a poetry reading,
so the pipe would be put aside
as the writer took out his collection
of poems and gladly complied.

Close to after the closing hour
two Gardai wandered in one night,
and, thinking the place would be raided,
Seamus' guests got a little fright.
But they went to the counter and ordered -
they had only come in to stay
for a Guinness, went back to their squad car
and quietly drove away.

And on Tuesdays the Trad band were playing -
the guitars quickly followed the call
of the bodhrán, and soon they were joined by
the most sensual flautist of all,
by the fiddles and pipes; the musicians
and the punters got caught by the beat,
and, with or without taking notice,
everybody was moving their feet.

When the music was over, we chatted
about neighbours or life's hectic mode,
till the bell rang out for last orders:
one more smoke, and a pint for the road.
Then we slowly got up and returned to
a world of a different kind -
in the days of Seamus McLaughlin
we went home with a song on our mind.

When the Euro came in, I once mentioned
that I needed a mobile; with perked
ears he said he'd sell his for a tenner,
and I gave him ten Euros. He smirked:
'When I said it was yours for a tenner,
I meant Pound'. - I just should have known,
so I gave him another two eighty
and owned my first mobile phone.

And as soon as we laughed at first rumours
of a ludicrous smoking ban,
Seamus sold his wee pub, and we'll never
come together like that again.
Today he is playing at weddings
or in pubs round the Point, and I meet
him in town now and then when I'm shopping,
and we stop for a chat in the street.

Then we talk of the present and future,
how things should be and how they are;
but when I meet one of the others
who used to drink in his bar,
we both, caught in a spell of nostalgia,
dig up many a memory
from the days of Seamus McLaughlin,
when life was the way it should be.

‘Twas Christmas Eve for the guys from An Post
who’d returned from their rounds to the store,
full of chocolate and cake and the Christmas drinks
they were served at many a door.

John, too, stumbled out of his van; on all fours
he crawled to the office, but when
he was told he forgot a delivery,
he had to crawl back to the van.

He climbed in and headed for Ballintogher
where even the wind makes no sound,
where there’s only dark woods and no living soul
for dozens of miles around.

The woods of Ballintogher
are treacherous and deep,
and no one dares examine
the secrets they may keep.

He turned at a corner, a song on his lips,
looking forward to biscuits and tea,
when a magical force changed the course of the van
and wrapped it around a tree.

The Gards soon arrived, and, testing his breath,
grew as pale as the wintery sky:
‘Dear God, you’re as drunk as a sailor’, they screamed,
‘you may kiss your licence goodbye!’

‘I swear that I had not a drop while I drove,
but after the accident
a lady appeared from among the trees
and approached me, a glass in her hand.

‘She was stately and young, with flowing red hair,
and she wore a transparent gown,
and she helped me up, and she told me: “You need
a brandy to calm yourself down.”

‘I emptied the glass in one go, and she filled
it up once more, combed her hair
and vanished into the woods again,
like she was never there!’

The woods of Ballintogher
are treacherous and deep,
and no one dares examine
the secrets they may keep.

Since then drivers stop there on Christmas Eve,
and they wait, as the sun slowly sinks,
for the Mystical Lady of Hennessy’s Corner
to bring them their Christmas drinks.

The dome of rain still hangs around you,
the western winds still tear the sky,
just like the day that I once found you,
just like the day I once will die,
you saddest town of all.

Your careless beauty makes me shiver:
there's cans and daisies on your lawns,
and from a bench beside the river
through iron bars I see your swans,
you saddest town of all.

The clouded dark blue mantle covers
your opaque waters in the night,
for poets, suicides and lovers
the moon sends down her mystic light,
you saddest town of all.

The walls of silence still surround you,
and still the world is passing by,
just like the day that I once found you,
just like the day I once will die,
you saddest town of all.

In a valley near the ocean
stood the city of Nagnata,
heart of commerce and devotion;
here, in Erin’s thriving gem,
the Dagda lived and his inamorata
beside the shrine his people built for them.

In a mill the men were grinding
corn while bards gave their renditions
at the streamlets that were winding
through ravines down to the sea,
from near and far the traders and musicians
arrived, becoming what they strove to be.

Mansions, roads and public places
yielded its distinguished aura,
fishermen with ruddy faces
sat on stones and cast their rods,
and over them the deities’ restorer,
the Dagda governed, Father of the Gods.

But one morning when the silence
of the birds engendered pity,
when the mist rolled from the highlands
and the streets were glazed with rain,
the tidings spread like wildfire through the city
that Patrick was arriving with his train.

Chanting hymns, the Lord’s battalion
marched and noisily descended
while the Dagda on his stallion
Acein knew he faced his fate,
and anxiously he held his arm extended
and told his men to close the city gate:

‘With this town I have created
one last haven of traditions,
and it won’t be desecrated
by a foreign god or priest;
Nagnata is no place for Christian missions –
we shall not be invaded from the East!’

But the clerics were no mortals
of the common disposition,
and they walked right through the portals
like a host of phantoms, and
with sheer determination and ambition
they took control of every inch of land.

Patrick and his monks selected
the location where their abbey
was supposed to be erected
while the Dagda turned around,
telling his citizens: ‘Don’t let these flabby
intruders violate this holy ground!’

Yet no weapon could undo them:
knife and axe caused no destruction,
and their arrows went right through them
like a brooklet through the fen -
at night they would dismantle their construction,
but in the morning it would stand again.

Soon Nagnata lay defeated
and strange laws were promulgated.
When the belfry was completed,
the old god warned with a frown:
‘With the first bell that tolls, this celebrated
city shall perish and its captors drown!’

On that sunny Easter morning
after they had raised the steeple,
still ignoring every warning,
Patrick’s monks felt they were blessed;
but as they rung the bell to call God’s people,
they heard a distant rumbling from the West.

Then the sky was set in motion,
and a sudden rain cascaded
down the vale, the savage ocean
pushed landinwards to reshape
the valley; on a hill the Dagda aided
his friends in building boats for their escape.

And he watched the waters rising
in the city he had founded,
watched the wild and jeopardising
torrent that had been a brook,
and while the bells below his feet still sounded,
he gave his work of art the parting look.

Poignantly he took his magic
harp, and he commenced to strum it
as his city met its tragic
end; the pensive god grew pale,
and as the raging waters reached the summit,
the Dagda and his followers set sail.

- Where the hawks and crows examine
every chimney in the mountains,
only stirred by swans and salmon,
lies the surface of Lough Gill,
and on clear days their buildings and their fountains,
their streets and homes can be distinguished still.

You may see the desolated
market where they used to barter,
next to it the consecrated
shrine and abbey, ne’er to wake,
and if you hear the church bells of Nagnata,
they call you to the bottom of the lake.

When the banshee's soothing sound
ends my solitary fate,
do not put me in the ground;
not a tombstone nor a plate
mark my distant burial mound.

On the hill of Knocknarae,
on the plateau let me rest;
pen in hand, far from the way,
standing upright, facing west,
let me overlook the bay.

In no ritual bemoan
my demise once I take wing;
as in life, I'll stand alone,
but let those remembering
put upon my cairn a stone.