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  • Filíocht Nua:New Poetry
  • Tom French

Artaud on Aran

Antonin Artaud is remembered on Inishmore as a solitary, sick man, a duine le Dia, a man with God.

Irish Times, 14 August 1951

If travelling light in the upper storeysin the Free State in the 30s had been a crime,the arrests would've had to have begun earlyand gone on for an indecent length of time.

You weren't the first to resort to the societyof sea and stone, to wind up where peyoteand poitín meet at the periphery of the mind,and find the North Atlantic un peu de trop.

Your offences were finding the bare necessitiesbeyond your means, and not being from here.Your campaign to restore us to ourselves ends

with a one-way trip through deserted streetsto the quays in the back of an unmarked car,a plain clothes' bon voyage falling on deaf ears. [End Page 44]

A Plum Tree

for Fiona

We planted two we meant to mean ourselves,turned so that the longest branch of eachappeared to be reaching towards the otherat the end of the garden, across grass and air.

In their second season, when one was bowedwith young fruit and wasps swarmed to feast,specks appeared on the tips of the other's leavesand the flesh, beneath the bark, turned brown.

Its thin trunk and desiccated roots went uplike tinder. Lawn filled in the bare patch.We talked of replacing the lost one but didn't

and forgot to remember if it was me or you.A loppers evened off the reaching branch.The tree that prospered came to mean the two. [End Page 45]

Last Words

after the Irish of Séamus Dall Mac Cuarta

I'm a long time stretched abroad in Louth,hauled by torment to the end of strength.Rouse yourselves now and assemble mento shoulder your love to the bone orchard.

Legion were the courts and strongholdswhere I held my own and saw the dawn.Would silence have garnered more favour,O God of grace, and sped me to Heaven?

I gave my life's days composing songsinstead of repenting as I should've done.But now that I am sick and up against it,Christ Jesus, have mercy on Séamus Dall. [End Page 46]

Local History

His e-mail password is the townland he wasborn in, the townland her people hail from.Hers is the surname of the first manshe ever slept with, with whom she will be

buried. Together in front of the Local History PC,they Google the Ordnance Survey of Ireland,select their parish from a drop menuand head down a back road they both know.

A vast area of bog appears as a blank screen,yet she has a name for a part of it that's noton the map, in her head. Gáilte. Drumasawry.

Summerbank. Ballinavaddog. Staholmog. Hesty.He pans, and zooms in, and steers the mouse.From the passenger seat, she prompts him where to go. [End Page 47]

Signs of Rain

Swallows are low, snipe close to the house;wind from the east and sleep eludes the pigs;the spider stretches and creeps from his web;there have been cow tracks in the sky for days,dust flying, insects busying themselves; the dogis eating grass, the cat washes her face—spineto the fire—then slips out to hone nails on bark;frogs crossing the road, the distant hills appeartoo close; Hearth smoke rises in columns. Ashesturn blue. Soot falls in the grate. The sun sets palein the crows' nest. They are playing football.You could hang your hat on the moon, its ring.Days run into one another. All the signs pointto one thing—when you come it will be like rain. [End Page 48]

Cappagh

(National Orthopaedic Hospital)

There is the grounds man's barrow,his spade, his loppers, his secateurs.Thirty years between my grandmother's hipand my mother's knee; I am blown awayby how familiar is the avenue, its trees.

Michael Donaghy Reading...

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