SEAN RUANE POETRY LIVE Dublin September 2012 (selected texts are in Description below)

Описание: STILL CRAZY

I saw, in a middle-aged stranger's face,
The fine-drawn, darling features of a girl
I'd loved in college: full lips; arched brow; brown
Eyes that mirrored my straining and my squinting
Incredulity as we waltzed our way,
As if on castors, towards one another.

It hardly struck me if she'd changed that much,
Though she must have. Time had crumpled and folded
Back onto itself like her yellow scarf
For the few minutes that we ranged and squabbled
Over and rearranged the autumn lived
Together and the decades spent apart:

"You've got a memory like a sieve", she said.
Later, I wondered if my looming mug
Had simply shocked her in its grizzled state,
Or if it still retained some of the boyishness
From the days our affections, at full gallop,
Had shied at the first high gate of commitment.

But since I'm not the sort to waste my nights
Undergoing by windows the metallic
And meticulous surgery of moonshine,
Or one to sift through memories of hair,
Tawnied and winnowed by an evening breeze
And the cornfield-loving light of September,

To curious friends I laughed the whole thing off:
Evidently she had no regrets, I
Quipped -- she was far too happy to see me!
"What about you?" they asked, "Regrets?"
-- Regrets
Are what the French discuss over baguettes
And filter coffee and unfiltered cigarettes.


CATTLE-GRID

After the raids by driven sheep and cattle
On his lawn, the Neighbour dug a neat pit
At the entrance to his property: That'll

Keep 'em out, he said, when he'd bricked the edge
And laid an old five-barred gate down flat on it
Yards from his cottage, Don't do things by halves!

The Neighbour never did. That summer, hedge-
Hogs fell and rotted in his dark cage, calves
Broke legs, and children crashed their bikes in it.

While Neighbours of his in that close-knit village
Speculated and pondered on the grid
And what lay under or between its staves,

He just stood at dusk, right foot on the bottom
Bar and arms folded, looking down with pride
On the vast, rolling acreage of his kingdom.


POWER CUT

There was a power
Cut in the south-east of County Meath
In the same hour
My father breathed
His last of twilight
And July.
I flicked a light
Switch -- automatically
At first, as I reached
His room
For candles; but then deliberately,
And repeatedly,
As my eyes adapted
To the gloom.


"255242"

"Two double-five, Two-four-two":

A balanced phrase synonymous with home
And days of perfect length; an unencumbered
Sound estate! This easily-remembered
Line of poetry, hidden in a huge tome,
Could spell me back from rusting-spoke-filled hallways
To the oak desk and the cast-iron chair,
Evoking me for old friends anywhere.
Its incantation was auspicious always:

"Two double-five, Two-four-two."

But while the apparatus calmly slumbered,
The banns were read, robotically intoned
By electronic clerics of the telephone
Announcing that its single days were numbered:
Soon it must stand preceded by an "Eight"!
I took it badly, I admit. How strange
That loss is often preferable to change,
That love's less blind than unrequited hate:

"Eight, two, five, five, two, four two"?

My beautiful palindrome! My caesura,
And the dactyl-swallowing anapaest:
All of its poetry ceased to exist
With the hulking arrival of that extra
And primordial figure -- as when you met
Your childhood sweetheart with her fiancé,
And her words had that syncopated rhythm:
"Engaged", she said; "Do ring". But now you can't get

Through on "Two double-five, two-four-two"

Without that fucking cipher in the way;
And yet, you're still reluctant to leave it.
Some people take their landline numbers with them
When they move house? I can well believe it.


CORRECTIONAL FACILITY

When my only goal was avoiding mistakes,
Pride and Perfection were gods to be assuaged.
For my and everybody else's sake,

The cutting-room floor must have no out-takes
And the waste-paper basket scrunched-up page.
When my only goal was avoiding mistakes,

I bet with matchstick pittances for stakes,
Held down the job with the steadiest wage
For my and everybody else's sake,

And learned to distinguish authentic from fake
By using my own self-calibrated gauge --
When my only goal was avoiding mistakes! --

But caused, ironically, so much heartache,
Silently suffering imprisoning rage
For my and everybody else's sake,

Refusing to countenance any gaol-break
Although I held the keys to my own cage
When my only goal was avoiding mistakes
For my and everybody else's sake.


All poems COPYRIGHT © Sean Ruane