Skyhooks And Seamus Heaney---Mid Term Break
Without Prejudice
I have always loved this poem by Seamus Heaney. The last sentence telling the whole story in so few words.the poets struggle to find the truth, his truth, can be read into that last sentence.
His grief, heartbreak, stoicism in the facing of the unbearable.
Mid-Term Break
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four-foot box, a foot for every year.
I have always loved this poem by Seamus Heaney. The last sentence telling the whole story in so few words.the poets struggle to find the truth, his truth, can be read into that last sentence.
His grief, heartbreak, stoicism in the facing of the unbearable.
Horror Movie by Skyhooks, doing the same for me. The real horror movie not a movie at all, but the evening news.
And so it is today, a reporter and cameraman shot dead in an on air interview, live on television.
The whole world watching in horror. A real life Horror Movie.
It was one of my daughters, favourite songs. A deep voiced Horror Movie in staccato rhythm and a lighter,
"Right there on my teeeeee veeee"
To follow.
She loved it, she sang it, she hummed it, she revelled in it.
Because of the words in Horror Movie I rarely, if ever, watch the news.
That was one of her legacies to me
That, and Vincent by Don McLean.
Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens.
Under The Boardwalk by anyone.
Free Fallin By Tom Petty
Sweet Child Of Mine by Guns N Roses
Patience, ditto.
Wishing to put into words what the heart and mind really feels is a writers nightmare, one you wake up sweating with, at 3am in the morning.
That elusive truth too hard to convey.
That elusive truth too hard to convey.
I think of my English teachers asking us to delve into feelings to find that elusive truth. To take a deep breath and look around us. What do we see?
Every time I read I am reminded of how much better someone else is. I am reading Ian Fleming at the moment,
Dr No.
Flemings richness of detail is overwhelming and makes me want to put down my pen and never write again.
Just read instead of phosphorescent seas and evil deeds.
I am transported to the Caribbean in a nano second. To patois and Gumbo and heat, raw heat. And evil under the sun.
Just read instead of phosphorescent seas and evil deeds.
I am transported to the Caribbean in a nano second. To patois and Gumbo and heat, raw heat. And evil under the sun.
I envy him his writing and the cigarettes and whisky he maintained as he wrote. They say there is nothing like Ganja to break a writers block but I gave that up yonks ago.
