O’Malley died some twenty years ago
but when you ask about him in the pub
everybody knows you mean old Michael Joe
as if he’d just now finished reciting Yeats
over a pint of Guinness.
Michael Joe could not be buried upright,
like he wanted,
though they walked him up the stony hill
and pick-axed at the ground
for hours, the men at last gave up,
laid him down, and the sod,
and went back down for a draught
of poitin in his name.
Sheep of meek intelligence
sheer the grass about his grave
and bleat like mourners
whether it rains or whether it stops
as it sometimes does.
I saw you bow your head there,
wipe your eyes beneath the oilskin brim.
Pongo the Third, who never knew him,
danced as only sheep dogs can
a merry ring around the cairn.
No headstone, no inscription,
you could only guess he rested here
at the top of the hill, a low pile of rocks
grown mossy.
Author notes
The title, of course, is absurd, but I didn't figure I'd get any attention with "Michael Joe O'Malley" or some other such dreary thing. Suggestions welcome, natch.
Poitin is Irish moonshine, pronounced something like "potcheen".
Comments
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i like pongo the third
and i'm back again.... as my friend is over from CountyDown and she loved reading this... she said it is Ireland and it's men...
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I am here late. I was here before. You make some changes I think with the Pongo the new. I was in Ireland once. It felt like this.
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I'm not picking this one apart at all... I love it, because I can see so much of it in a lot of the people I've known..
not to mention old family heritage.. but besides that I love the earthiness, you are so damn good with stories, you and CV, me I'm lousy at it....
this "sheep of meek.... stanza is my favorite.. and this whole thing has so much sound....
and it's not pretentious ..or dramatic, it's life...
love it..
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Thank you Liza. I think I owe you a few.
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I love the title. And the poem as well.
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Thanks WindMan.
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LOL
I came back for two reasons:
1. I was thinking Pongo's Pongo, who never knew him
2. I happened to pick up Luminous things this morning and opened to page 164 - different country but here is a line from that poem: A shepherd, sheep, a dog, a ram
Off to trade show again. probably catch up with you sometime tomorrow.....
3 day weekend yayyyyyyyyyy -
I think I've been trying to figure out, what it is in this poem that made it feel so familiar and warming.. a certain way 'bout it all
and I think it reminds of when Desi talks of her Dad in the Irish Pubs and the definition of a man and how he was... such subtly woven words
If you can write Yeats and Guiness into a poem, then sheesh it'll do for me lass...
Michael Joe seems like a fine fella to me
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I wrote about him some time ago, under a different name - you might recall. (Possibly repeating some of the story, but I didn't check.)
Thanks, Gilly
Have yet to mail books - more fun shopping than mailing.
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A most Irish melancholy evocation....mixed with the humor of life, death and sheep..
Aye lass, all you be lacking is potatoes
And tsk...iff'in I can't smoke my pipe in the pub, then I shall sit on O'Malley's grave and share the mists with him...and perhaps drop a wee bit o'Guiness from time to time...to trickle between the stones and warm his gullet.
I shan't offer line break, rhyme or any other suggestions because, frankly, you write like you do and I enjoy the scene from where I sit (alas, not atop O'Malley's grave). The rain, it seems, is much like here. Sometimes it does stop.
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no smoking in pubs... it's a sign of the apocalypse, surely.
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sigh...it truly is.
Next..it shall be 'no drinking' in pubs...because..well, that sort of thing is frowned upon... -
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Apparently there are pubs in Ireland that say "No Singing". I suppose it leads to too much frivolity and not enough drinking, I don't know.
Back in the day, you couldn't get a pint without offering a song or a poem. Back in the day. So I'm told.
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ARg....well, when you're blowing out breath, you can't be sucking beer in, eh lass?
I think.the song or poetry must have been before television. Imagine that!
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Yes, now they're all just running the football (soccer) games, like the bars here. Except the folkloric type places, for the tourists and diehards.
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He'd like that, I'm sure, but don't get him talkin or you'll be there all night. So I hear.
Thanks for the brogue, Bobiwan.
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here is your clap. your poem does definitely not stink. except of wet wool and pipe (don't ask, i just imagine pipe smoking in the pub )
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whew
(I think he might have smoked a pipe, actually - I'll have to ask. No smoking in pubs though, thankfully.)
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I do love signing on in the morning and finding you've posted something.
Okay being a selfish c**t, attempting to wallow through the twisty turning mindgames my Muse is playing with me, wondering if I'll ever write again and if so about what and why even I should consider, I find this poem a good place to ask:
What is the purpose of this poem? Is there a purpose? Does it need a purpose? Is the purpose because the poet needed to create? Is there something universal you wanted to communicate? Are you seeking "communion" with your readers? Or did you write this for the "you"? And is the you in the first few paragraphs the same you you are looking at in the last paragraph? I kind of felt like the you in the first part but obviously definitely not the you in the last...(p.s. we can converse about those issues elsewhere so as not to have my mess more spilling all over your poem).
Your Ireland poems are evocative, like the place crept into your psyche and lives like a ghost in your memory. A ghost that comes to talk to you. You must have nearly enough travel poems to make a travel poem manuscript.
Yeats/Guiness I'm not sure there is a better almost rhyme !!
I suck at line breaks but still wonder why upright is on the next line. I know there is all sorts of device, enjambment etc. I just think it is an odd way to read it. I'm sure just me.
though they walked him up the stony hill
you really need "though"?
I saw you bow your head there,
wipe your eyes beneath the oilskin brim.
You really need those lines?
Pongo, the new, who never knew him,
You really need "the new?"
Upon the unmarked grave of Michael Joe O'Malley ?
(I know you are in a 'I like you' phase but I did convert your yous to we in the first part and the last part for a different take).
Is it Friday yet???
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Hell, let's have the discussion here, so others can join if they care to.
The purpose is to tell the tale, and I'm toying with the idea of putting it (all of it, not just this fragment) in story form. If only I weren't so afraid of prose! The thing I keep thinking about is the power of this character, that when you (John, actually) asked about Michael O'Malley - in the B&B, not the pub, which is neither here nor there - the response was "Oh, you mean Michael Joe..." and a launch into story after story about the guy, dead all these years. He is/was a bit of a legend. John had lived with him back in the early 70's, "from the planting to the harvest".
See? I can't shut up about him.
I think poems which strive for something universal risk being pedantic. A good poem probably strikes a chord universally (or at least with a lot of people), but it's that people bring their own story to the poem, rather than the other way around. So I believe.
But what I know for sure is that if I start to be concerned with "the purpose of the poem", the ink runs dry.
When I find myself so concerned, I turn to books of poetry and discover poem after poem "about" mundane things; some grab me, some don't, but all of them free me to write without purpose.
Art is useless. That's the beauty of it, in a utilitarian society.
"You" in this particular poem is not every-you, you're right. Could be we, he, they etc. I'm lazy.
Thanks for the other thoughts re details. Pongo, the new, is a descendent of Pongo who was Michael Joe's dog. I want to convey that somehow, as that, too is part of the man's legacy. Maybe a better way will come.
Good title suggestion. This one is bringing in lots of read, but few comments. LOL
You didn't clap, does that mean you think it stinks?
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never write prose, just string poems together so that it looks like prose. and don't rhyme, that's important, or...if you must, do it really sneaky like so nobody noticies. the greats of prose really write poetry that is only loosely edited. Oh sure, you have to tie the poems together with some easy-reading-type story stuff, I think, but really, let's get to the bloody meat.
This poem feels like it was written by someone old, beaten, happy, having forgotten hope or ambition long ago. Resigned.
Oh, it's quite good. You are in a good period here, in case you're having doubts. -
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oh...Ondaatje - The English Patient. Every page a poem. Some people hate that, but me, it makes me weep.
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That's me - old, beaten, happy.
Thank you, there are always doubts, some bigger than others.
Lovely to have a mustachioed visit. Lisa shaved. Not even a kitten or a peony any more, you notice?
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she's got nothing. it's as if she shaved her soul right off. Poor thing
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oh gosh no i don't think it sucks. i just got so carried away typing i forgot and it was early when i visited.
i don't think art is useless. i think art is the only thing that could possibly save us, however ridiculous that sounds, that is what i believe. perhaps that is also why i cannot write at this time. i feel distressed at the world, distressed at the world of art and poetry, distressed at capitalism, war -- people.
there is so much i read that i find -- well, pollution really (i did order that book, can't wait to get it) my own attempts at poems included and yet in the pollution i do hear a universal need for people to express things. Yet, everyone seems so self-absorbed to me, myself included i suppose.
i think i like pendants. But i never really think about poetry in that regard, if i like it, i like it. if i don't i don't.
i did my first poetry workshop with hannah's class today. -- i read them This is Just to Say
they loved it. One kid, when I asked what the poem meant to them, said "I think that poem is about temptation" 10 year old. Anyway they all wrote their own This is Just to Say poems -- and this one kid, Sean Walsh, he is known as a real pain in the ass, he wanted to read his first and he got up in front of the class and took a stool and stood on it -- and i was like "Holy Shit, this kids couldn't have seen the Dead Poets Society" anyway I'm rambling -- it was the highlight of my day. The teacher said "Wow, thanks so much for sharing your passion about poetry" and i left smiling.
anyway, don't be a dork, write your prose though i will probably tell you you should unprose it and make it a book of poems.
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I didn't say art was worthless, I said it was useless. Difference.
Great poem to start kids off! Do you know the little book, "Love That Dog", by Sharon Creech? You MUST get it if you don't have it. About a kid learning poetry. Starts off with WCW, too, that other one he wrote.
Yay you!
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OH
I just looked. I'm going to buy one for every kid in the class as their end of the year gift from me.......
yayyyyy -
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That's a lovely thought. Alternatively, you could buy a class set for the school (or even half a dozen, if they do lit circles), as a legacy. You always buy all the kids gifts? Mighty generous!
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yes. i usually buy them a book or a journal or something like that. and i always buy one for the classroom that stays with the teacher. just up until 6th grade.
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I don't know the book
but will shortly know the book.
i'm at a trade show. it sucks. thankfully the attendees are currently ensconced in their little breakout sessions. i'm sitting in the booth talking to you.
yes what ed said up there about good place. i think so too. definitely.
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psst... you can have ... Man Dies - Michael Joe or A poitin parade - the man is dead
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I have alot to say on this ... so I shall come back.... when I figure out, just what it is I want to say.... if that makes sense
this touches many bases and I need to unravel..
one thing I don't like .. is Pongo, the new .... it sounds .... not good... ... but that maybe just me.. i am, often wrong
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