various ragged fringes 

part three

the swayling---A Marginal Market/ for cardsharps---days of---in rarest atlantis---the marginalia.

        the swayling

Likely there are many reasons
what has happened  

          touch has sprung
          a quick awaken

          lives have clustered
          where there is land for the eyes

          the farmers can’t
          be stopped from burning off

Having come unstuck from sleep
the senses are on sweet alert

A bright fire engine standing by
the lasting ceremony
stages

laughing men are beating at the fires

---

A Marginal Market
for cardsharps

     here’s a trick
TURNED OVER
 that will force
  A RUDE AWAKING
in the morning

 

                       
     various ragged fringes
     having trouble with
     applause

the force of wave will shock you more
than innocent remorse

---

                      days of
                             headlands

            islands
gorse, ling, heather
harebells in flower
gulls in flight

              the seafringe bubbles
              day is lit
              by sharp sudden gullsqualls
look, a cormorant low over water
its wingtips make ringlets
across the vast expanse

           wind wave shadows
           sun light on the water
           of mary her
           fair ffynnon

fresh water, rock
at ragged fringe
          The ragged fringes crowding
          down towards the water
stepping over sharp and jagged rocks

         The saints refreshed prepare
         to pass across
         the sound of water
stepping over sharp and jagged rocks
         after days of
         varied rages, faded eyes are
on a tattered denim haven
         one more drink, the saints
         prepare
         to pass away

Fair land across the sound of voices
always
      a return

      it’s time to gather up the fringes
      & to step across
                      the book

The phrases lifted as
a cumulation  
            into airy blue
with children’s voices the
approaching water shows

their fairness
right

        across a shining sound

---

                       in rarest atlantis

    buffets of atlantic wind
    sprinkle the island city

    her sky is blue between
    a catholic and her

                 familiar green
    and here there are her
fairways of dreamy grass
                and lightblue lightens ways
to farther west
               and fair
             out of the throng
        is a bay clear

 

            out at the setting of the
            occidental incline
    fair weather out and further
    out and out blue irish
         anticyclone
    all the shores of air
    and coastline of
           a sentimental nation
    chasing shoals of the elusive
    and fragmented kipper
    silver cash

 
        islands and islands in my eyes
        as I press my face into
        an air blue towel

        evening folds of ulster flax
        to rub the folds of
        uttermost skin

 

.......................and to what bower
         of gory blue
        the story book is
               balladed
as catholic tomorrow martyrs
in the sick & saintly market
of the true sham blarney
raise a rhetoric against
a distant freestate army
to deflect defeat of
instant sunbled poets of
the island dream of
mass selected carnage

        wings & branches
            black & tans
               & in the East
        A Rising
           Christ of Eire
        ½ the dial
        in jail
           and ghosts refuse
           to take their seats
      until the Pope is
             melted in a seal
      to take the Crown
             and ministry of postage

   there’s drilling
   there’s a turbulence
   of arms confused in mist
   a myth across the bog

And when the tambour enters a
regular thud
We are all enjoined
We are called to the bower
Of a national passion

     “and I wish the queen
      would call home her ar-
      my”

   

             flushing out the hidden berries
             each pays for
             intoxicating each

             distracted out
             beyond a bitty coastline

             contracted out
             between remoter islets

             sweet backhanders
             of an islish fiddle

             more modulets yet
             for we

 

             hags in hedges
             cackled out at him
             the visages
             enlightened in the foliage

             the tangle takes
             the jamboree to pieces
             to the rattle of
             a battered tambourine

             and all the villages remoter
             needled in the bog
             a quaking wave

             and in among the orchids
             in the limerock
             wanders many an irish
             cracked & promised ghost

 

                     

   circumspect glances confirm that
   a living is got
   and mirrored in a bar

   rowers force the water
   by power of prayer
   and without a baler
   forcing crops of oats
   from in between
   buts of rock but
   blue eyes of Mayo read of
   high wages got
   demolishing british victoriana

 

             
           south wet coats
           a steam of piss
           arises

but the surf removes all thought
to music of
           wind tattered edges
all the wild
            and flowered hedges
and a western bearded ghost

bedraggled seaweed skellig
cockled at the hem

 

                      
   precentralised poetry so that each
   makes trade with each
   untaxed by meaning
   so that fishing out the common culture
   context nets the future contact

       ......well the
       waters of
       Sainte Marye Virgine....

                 the brim of a flower cup
                 reflecting her heavens

 

         free grant of grace
         to be less graceless in
         among the guinnesses & at
         the planetary setting in its
         misty context
                      grace
         through haze & all the grasses
         wet with it
               it is a
               sentimental notion
         blue of atmosphere bespottled
                   spotlit
         blotted out

 

squally birds set up a quarrel
skerries, skelligs, stretch out through
the paler blue, and further pale
and cottonblue
              but for the traces of
the jets grey sliver of
enlightened tracery
enlightened lives of
lightest airy blue

 

                            
pressing handbutts into eyes are
islands islands islands
             so many capes
             so many a
      ragged fringe
             the pattern of a
           fine embroidered hem
     so many
            islands
faces
     hosts of
            unexpected ghosts among the
cumulations in the
             lifted space that’s
             left

         free gratis irish grace
         the dip & beaker of
         familiar terns that
         decorate a margin

         lucky fingers cluster
         rubbing eyes it all
         seems blurring livid
         burning flame
& drops
       back to the
shimmer
       that it’s
drawn from

 
          leaves laugh at the
          sudden summer fame that
          torches sprout awake

  withdrawal from illusion
  as an alcoholic
  from the rim of promise

  shaking at the border of
  the glitter
  in a silent pitch

  the ringing of a sound

  withdrawal of his lips that touched
  exceptional strong
  under-counter potion

  sirens of an utter danger
  and another place

---

                the marginalia

       some time spent at margins
       gathering wrinkles
       revealed by a fluctual ebb

 

                        
time’s a still town till
another time initiation
happens
        marks of a defloration
        litter to make a term of
        stars and start again
plucked out a tune
by one & one
monotonies’ve been at large
until atoned
       by sparticles in time

 

                           
           (clitoral man)

         a mass of people
         move towards tobacco 
         there’s a train that
         brings it in

         the will is clitoral
         a little girl
         exciting all the marginalia

         tobacco is her heavy lover

 

                          
lonely the clitoral man found himself on a wide
plain, between mirrors, “not alone” as he is
on a track of lonely thought

           gold absorbs us                                         sobbing rain on
           water, eyes are
           windows on the
           sog of an endless green

there’s a blue, a blur maybe, & then he
cannot be distinguished

            in tiny town
            in the margin
            my market is full of strange men

 

                                    
a clitoral trip on the margins, braving death
or humiliation
brings us daily deliveries of
light on the burning corn

            posts mark out the
            known beaches & the
            owned fields behind

the ground is a great idea
stakes
     at crashing edge

the will migrates as an idea

       
beyond a tatty margin
stranded at outposts, seamarks the
edges of sedge of the nether marge, the
scent of urine dizzies me, a vinegar
my urine fizzes
                in the froth of mirth

       turns chuckling
       on the verge of sleep

---

 

---

 Notes.

or