Tag: Ireland

The Ancient Struggle

.Reading time 1 minute.
Why do I see myself in Gaza 
Like there’s something Irish about Barack Obama Plaza 
And I just drive these roads like there’s somewhere I’m going
But is there truth to it, there’s no way of knowing 
And there was a famine that was inflicted
And tenants that were evicted 
From they only place that they knew
Could provide food for you 
I look at the images of suffering 
In my history books and feel the storm worsening 
Inside myself and felt 
The kind of anger that injustice dealt 
Now I look at my screen and see 
A child with no way to be free 
In this life 
And people worry about a wife 
That might stray 
And I wonder what made them that way 
As their hearts are hard and unforgiving 
And hell comes for the living 
As they scream and cry
Or just accept that they’re going to die 
And I cannot lie 
That I’m afraid of remuneration 
Some kind of unwanted compensation 
For all the words that I write 
Because half of it is shite 
And could never measure up to 
All that I want to be for you 
Some kind of presence in the absence 
Of a leader as buildings are collapsing 
Under the weight of what they do not know 
Know that I will never let you go 
Not to be alone in this fight 
It’s bandages in the twilight

The Burden We Bear

.Reading time 2 minutes.
The tragedy of being Irish and free
Is now I have to watch them being ripped from me 
And we fought the British for so long 
Because they tried to stifle our song 
Only to realise 
That we were born under rainy skies 
And the famine and the genocide 
As my family dies 
And I stand at the grave
And think of all the people the fight could not save 
As we all hold the weight 
Of some kind of inflicted hate 
That still lives in our bones and blood
And they think they are good 
For daring to trying to quench the light 
Of the good fight 
For growing up on the grass so green 
Celtic and inbetween 
This world and the next 
And the Spanish were shipwrecked 
And now their bloodlines are descended 
We are a conglomeration that has amended
The phrase níos Gaelaí ná Gaeil iad féin 
And there’s something I love about the rain 
And touching down after Arizona 
My God, how I wish I could phone ya 
After our magnificent fight 
The one that set the devil alight 
And he tries to burn me in St. Pat’s 
As the people put out their welcome mats 
To tell me to come home 
And that it’s okay I’m alone 
But I just feel the shaking of the trees 
And the death that’s always on the breeze 
When you grow up under the sky 
Of the memory that cannot lie

The Wake

.Reading time 2 minutes.
It’s an Irish tradition 
But it feels like ammunition 
Firing into my soul 
Oh, what it takes to be whole
When a person is ripped from this earth
And people just say, I’m sorry that it hurt 
As I look at the body in the coffin 
And it wasn’t for a lack of lovin’
That it’s in there 
All the people who care
Are seated in a square
Around the walls
A four cornered room and we walk down the halls
Lined up in black 
And the slack 
That is cut like a new shirt 
Won’t still the breath that we skirt
“She looks the same”
Or “He looks peaceful” and his name
Is met by an inflection of the head
The horror of when someone is dead 
And there’s nothing you can do to get them back
I remember when they carried him out and lack
The ability to hold the memory in equanimity
Coz it’s the last time I’ll ever see
Him in that way
What do they say?
This too shall pass
But I don’t want it to if the love don’t last
Though the memory is like a baseball bat
And people wonder what am I at
Haunting the halls
I say it wouldn’t be this way if the walls
Would just fall down
But I drown 
In the ocean I open up
In the name of love 
And tears they pour like a saltwater sea
Down my cheeks and cut a valley through me
Like a glacier that moved the ground
To make Kilglass lake and the sound 
Of the drumlin belt echoing calls
Across the marsh and the footballs
That just hang in the sky
Why did my grandfather have to die? 

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Éire Go Deo

.Reading time 2 minutes.
I watch the images of bombed out bars
And burnt out cars
On city streets 
And I know that the heat
Is born from a fervour deep and true
I feel it in me and I see it in you 
And somehow peace has found a way
To hold and that’s the order of the day
It’s been 800 years
And so many women have cried tears
Over lost sons 
And I could be the one 
To finally unpeel 
The way they made our nation feel
As they circumscribe the land
And say this must be tilled by hand
And no more than so many yards
I don’t even know how hard
It must have been 
And my dream 
Has been rocked
Like the walls made up by people locked
In Connemara by the rule of the day
To hell or to Connaught, isn’t that the way
And we can bark orders and we can make decrees
But that Ireland isn’t me
It’s something other
It’s living and breathing for your brother 
And dying with hands crushed together 
Nowadays we just complain about the weather 
But the sadness is embedded in the roots
Of the great tree that began as shoots 
From the fertile soil 
I feel my blood boil 
When someone talks about English rule
The things they taught us in school 
About how to bend and break 
And why they did it for our sake 
And we must be respectful, too
Because they are human just like you
Then someone utters a word
And just like that the bird
Of hatred is born 
Because the fire of fear is still warm 
And glowing embers 
Not everyone knows but the heart remembers 
Even when the mind forgets 
And it’s not over yet
Not till the trauma storm 
Has made the people realise they warm 
Their hands on the coals of the past 
And in some ways people are classed
In the stratosphere
I feel the time near
When we must stand up and be counted
Oh, what has it amounted
To but this 
Heaven is in the first kiss 

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To The Land I Love (Éire)

.Reading time 4 minutes.
Half of the town is missing in Bermuda
You could search for a reason but it would elude ya 
Why the history of partition and pain
Became as common in Ireland as rain 
And I fight to hold my rebel spirit 
Under control so that no one might hear it
Because I have the heart of the Gael
And my soul is not up for sale
And my blood used to boil
When I would read history about our sweat and toil 
Under the rule 
Of the English that we learned in school
Had us under the thumb
And they would kill anyone who would not succumb
To the heavy weight of oppression
And it is my confession
That some part of me bears generational hate
For all of the acts that left us in that state
The people I would love to be kin 
To if they hadn’t died of the sin 
Of merely ceasing to exist 
As the loyal service of a crown that I missed
When they educate 
You to clean your dinner plate
Or you will die
If you do not want to lie
Then stand up and be counted 
As the people who stood up and shouted 
Against the lashing of hail 
And the plantation fail 
To convert an adequate number 
Now I see Palestine and their hunger
As they have no bread 
Because they are controlled by land, sea and air instead 
Of the freshness of home
Do we as a tribe leave them alone
To face the mountain of world 
Built on the conquering of the girl
In the soul of us all
Someone wants to build a brick wall 
To keep the Mexicans out 
But I don’t trust a word out of his mouth
Because the land is free
And it does not belong to me 
But I to it
The Native American’s in the place where I sit
At the altar of pride
It is not okay that I hide
When I have the privilege to say
The conquering is not okay
When you consider the truth
The civilised nations to play the brute 
And inflict 
Themselves on a future I would rather quit 
In the innocent stain 
I can see it happening again 
As the world turn 
But will the world burn
If we do nothing to stall
The advance of the darkness that answers the call
Of the nomad or thief 
I look to the sky and its blessed relief
Just to know 
That there is a space that will not let go
And though they fly through the air
And I have been there
I can’t set a flag
On a cloud so that I can brag
That I now own it 
I used to resent but I have grown it
Into simmering wisdom 
I watch the auspices of power and the Great Schism 
Split us into a prism of light 
That we are all one is the message of life
And bear no hate for your enemy 
Coz you walk in his shoes and you discover you’re free
To love enough not to be pulled low
Enough to wish him to die slow 
In the mists of time 
If I could forgive would that be a crime 
For the sake of pure love
And all of the Gaelic in the place where I stood
My ground in this sacred place
If you don’t know you can read it in my face

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The Age Of Existence

.Reading time 1 minute.
I can feel a wave and I’m getting ready to surf it
The bog is flat before you turf it
And build it into little towers
Stacking sods with all our powers
Until our backs ache
And we take a break
To soak in cool 7up
By the pores, it’s enough 
And those were the days of sunburn
And racing my sisters to take a turn
At who could be the best
Then copping out coz we need a rest
And is this the end to the quest
Stand up on Sundays at the behest
Of the Lord that commands
In the acres of desert sands
To find just what we are
Led by the light of the star
That shine over the stable 
Get up and sing, if you’re able
Or the sadness will just consume
One day you’re the only one in the room
And holding the light in tilting frame
Barely able to say your name
With lips that quiver with the weight
And hearts that have surrendered the hate
And age takes it all, even the body
Time wearing out like the car getting shoddy
And someday you must face the succumb
Only tell tales of when you were young
But in reality you can’t relive
Only hold your hands out to forgive
All that you couldn’t get by with
I rely on my soul, the departure of wit
Knows me all too well
I’ll choose Heaven over some kind of hell

The Commensurate Struggle

.Reading time 3 minutes.
The commensurate struggle under foreign rule 
And we learn about it in school
Like it is part of history
But there is so much that does not sit well with me 
Because I looked to the North of Ireland and could see
Blood on the streets as a child of 1990
And yet somehow there was an agreement that stemmed the tide
The flow of blood was silent outside
Though it still simmers underground
And I’m attuned to that sound 
As I hope it will rise only to be let go of
In place of a deeper kind of love
Now, bombs drop in the Middle East
And I wonder if our peace
Could be translated 
If the powerful could be educated 
In what it means 
To break nightmares into dreams 
For there are tens of thousands of children die 
Since the birth of the realm that made them cry
And I cannot stay silent and roll 
Like this is all there is in my soul 
Like I don’t have the blood of my ancestors proud
Who would say that the innocent and the loud
Should stand on equal footing 
And I know where they are putting 
The blame and why 
But no one deserves to die 
Before their time 
And is a war crime 
Only recognised in hindsight 
They starved us too 
From 1845 to ‘52
A million died
And mothers cried 
Others emigrated 
Now I’m listening to things the politicians stated 
As they barricade and siege 
With a terror you would not believe 
Leaving the people to disease 
And hunger and thirst 
I can only imagine the worse
As I hear the stories out of the Strip 
And soldiers as they equip
Themselves with weapons of war
Because they think they know what it’s for 
But when you look in their eyes do you see spirit 
And when a bomb drops and a child screams do you hear it
In the midnight of everyday 
Is it that you want a people to go away
And we were the Irish problem 
But somehow we were able to resolve them 
And for now, at least
A tenuous peace 
Holds in the dismantling 
Of the broken wing
At the heart of the tale 
Of how we are not up for sale 
And the people of the land 
Understand 
What it means to be driven home 
In a car all alone 
Thinking of a fellow kin 
And what they are doing to them
Under the guise of justification 
Saying we need an education 
In the politics of the Middle East 
Well I do and it’s the least
Thing I need to know it’s wrong 
When the materially strong
Use their force to betray
Everything in them that would say 
This is just not right 
What’s it like to be awake in Gaza tonight?

To Be Irish And Free

.Reading time 2 minutes.
To be Irish and free
Is this a part of our history 
That we could call a break with the past
Coz it’s been nigh on 1000 years since the last
Time empire didn’t darken our door 
And I couldn’t wish for anything more
Than the heart that beats in my chest
For the rest 
Of the world that still labours under
The sound of that thunder
As it quakes ground 
With artillery or the sound
Of the machinery of the day
Because they want to take away
All that we have come to know
But Love does not let us go
In spite of all the trouble 
And it is no bubble
That we just fell into 
It is the heritage we were born to 
Embody
And already
I can see the dawn
When the tendrils have withdrawn 
From their occupation of lands
And the dust and the sands
Yield no harvest
But I divest 
Myself of the poverty
And say all beings should be free
Of the mighty weight of bowing down 
And the water will not drown 
It will only nourish and refill 
What the darkness tried to kill
And it’s not a personal sin
It is just a deviation from Him
And the persecution dies
As the whole world tries
To shift the narrative 
And it is imperative
That we do not tolerate
What we’ve come to know as hate
As it darkens the door 
That has come to shatter on the floor
But the light just pours through
And it’s from within me and you 
There is no us and them 
There’s just a mistake we can’t make again

The Broken Wall

.Reading time 1 minute.
Are our memories so short that we could call this history 
And the mystery 
Of the Emerald Isle 
Is how we survived the trial 
Of invasion 
And the abrasion 
Still shows in galactic consciousness 
As we struggle to address 
The appropriate evil to compensate
For why we were in that state
It seemed like there was nothing we could do 
Except rebel, rebel 
But it was a kind of hell 
As they starved the land of its people 
And we replaced futility with a steeple
And prayed to a God we knew not of
Because only Divine Love
Could be our salvation
As we were collateral damage for a nation
Who’s only goal was empire 
And I wonder they never tire 
Of the chains they induce
And they seduce 
The whole world with their lies
And now it tries 
To deceive again 
Because in the realm of men
Killing and war are necessary
But children are not an accessory
To the damage you do 
Yes, I am talking to you
You equivocate
And evaluate
What you do by some measure
But your treasure 
Is not to be found in the blood of the young
Or a people to succumb
To what you want to achieve
I know you believe 
In what you say
But I see another way
To mend the broken wall
Try letting the damn thing fall

From The River To The Sea

.Reading time 3 minutes.
They chant the verse 
And I rehearse
For my own tune to own
My, how the flowers have grown
On this land
Where the empty sand
Used to hold the bones
And the stones 
Of what once were homes
Of those who emigrated 
Or died in the peat bogs evacuated
And they call it An Ghorta Mhor 
But let me whisper to you, a stór 
That it was a genocide
As they starved the ones who died
Just so they could export their grain
Grown on a ground green with rain
And the invisible hand
Of economics understand
That you cannot intervene 
Or you will shatter the dream 
That says that individuality
Brings about the best reality
And is a self balancing axis 
Now, we’re watching equivocation pay our taxes
And export our problems to a foreign scene 
And there may no longer be a queen
Who says who gets to live or die 
But Elizabeth nodded her head to those who cry
In memory of those slain
Do you think that I forget the pain
Just because I’m young and free
And no one has ever harmed me 
In the way that is described 
By the history books I pried 
From my own fingers, harrowed to the core
And it’s not happening anymore
Here
But I fear
That a child bombed by the IDF 
Has no chance to call for the ref
To call an end to the game
Coz the sides aren’t level and if it’s all the same
I’d rather not watch the slaughter
Of someone’s son or daughter
To satisfy regality
I’ve had enough of that to destroy me 
Being Irish on Celtic soil
There were years I felt my blood boil 
At the memory of what had been done
Now I am the one
Who can speak up to say
This is not okay
And if you make rubble out of homes
You poison your own stones
As they’re thrown into the pit
It’s not something I can sit with 
And just say it’s the way things are
We are all warmed by the same star 
And it heats every grain of sand 
It is not limited to the realm of man 
But to all of God’s creatures
To the expression of nature’s features 
As it turns on us to express
That we cannot suppress
The sacred feminine within
Just to satisfy the man that would win
The war
You want a reason but what for?

My Longing For Dublin

.Reading time 1 minute.
Is my longing for Dublin just coz you’re in it
I’m on the decks and it’s the way that you spin it
And there are buildings scraping the sky
And a civilization threatening to die 
And I walked the yards into the green
I was ashamed of what I had been 
In midnights and the dawn
I searched for something but it was gone
A pyramid scheme 
Til the suffering woke the dream
Up from where it had been sleeping
Now it’s just the promise I’m keeping 
As I pray to a God without belief
And the moment of relief
When all and sundry falls away
Some have called it the break of day
But it’s the dark
The dead of night in the park
Just staring at walls
Hoping for a free for all
But I got a cell and a bed to lay
Could I have had it any other way?

Resuming Communications

.Reading time 3 minutes.
I’ve finally realized I can talk to you again
When I gave up and they said, it’s just men
And I was banging my head against the wall
Coz we can’t communicate at all
And I’m screaming refrains out into the night
They look at me and wonder if I’m alright
Coz I’ve got you on my mind
But you weren’t so kind
And I vacated the premises
And you became a sort of nemesis 
I chased in my dreams
And we’re walking on hollow beams
As we cross the room, under the ceiling
You said no and it send me reeling
Out into the dark
And the park
Never looked so lonely 
And I was mourning for you only
As they dimmed the lights
Do we give up on our fights
As we storm the bastille
But how do you feel
When you lay your head down on a pillow
And I know I am weeping but it’s coz I’m a willow
It’s in my nature
And you left a crater
When you crashed to earth
I was grief stricken, more than hurt
Like I try to play even, I try to play calm
But you grabbed me by the arm
And wrote something there
I look in your eyes and I care
About our horizon
And you are something or so I’m surmising
As we drift apart
But still all heart
I hope you’re happy, I hope you’re well
But I love you still, let it go to hell
All my secrets spilled out on a screen
And you are the man I couldn’t even dream
You’re so perfect ensue
And what in the world do I mean to you
All the things we could do
Walk a mile in another’s shoe
Or sail a river down the stream
I know you’re the king but I am a queen
Of my own domain
Cry to the sky of making it rain
And plain
Are the words I speak to you
I want it back, if that’s okay, too
And you smile and my destiny dance
Do you think we could give love another chance
As it weaves between poles
Crafting the tapestry of our souls 
Into a new stance
I felt the waves ocean advance 
Into the shore
I can’t help but want you more