Dirty Little Secrets

you may sing about the heroes,
the men who roamed the glen,
their names are in our histories
kept alive by our memories,
were it not for men’s longings,
not a song would be sung for women…
those who washed your clothes,
those who kept you fed,
those whose bodies bore you,
those who comforted you,
those who came into your life,
those who’ve gone,
side by side they fought and died
with the heroes of your songs…
but not a name among them
comes to mind tonight,
the autumn sun is sinking low,
pale moon rises over the meadow,
shining on unmarked graves,
these are the places they lay,
those who loved you, hate you most,
that is, if they at all remember
the old mothers’ ghosts.

eternity of endless space,
somewhere out there
someone is wondering
the same things I wonder
at the same moment,
perhaps even looking
at the same star,

we are of the same essence,
we are in the same dream,
fathomless existence
nothingness, everythingness,
dancing our dancing,
beyond speech and silence,
there is another way out.

I’ve tried it. I used to play guitar, but forgotten pretty much everything I learned. I’ve actually written a couple of songs, failed on many more. I think some of my poetry is somewhat rhythmic and could probably be adapted as lyrics. Songwriting can be very different than writing poetry, though. It has its own set of challenges. I find the pattern and rhythm of poems to be very compatible with music. I think some of the first Classical period poems were accompanied by lyre, so they became known as lyric poetry.

The Irish are well-known for their poetic and musical artistry. In ancient days, it is believed that the pattern and tonal and rhyming variations in poetry were ways of calling upon the powers of the spirits of place or of the Ancestors to effect a magical outcome. These are no mere rhymes. They are words and images of immense magical power, truth summoned from the Otherworlds. The creation of this true, fearful poetry is inherently ennobling, raising the poet from the basest of conditions into enlightenment. This Celtic form of enlightenment is no gentle melding with the oneness of the universe. Instead, it is a passionate, sometimes uncontrollable engagement with the fabric of reality. Irish magic was largely a matter of poetry, composed and chanted for particular purposes. The rules of grammar, therefore, might be thought of as the building blocks of magic.