Night Surfing

I have the most eclectic taste. I just realised it tonight. You lot probably knew that little fact about me already. Why am I always the last one to know these things about myself? I’m probably too busy sticking my nose into other people’s business to notice my own life!

I occasionally (actually it’s becoming more often) suffer or rather I endure insomnia.

Once I used that quiet time to clean my house, but I got over that one! Now I mostly read or write or surf the net. I just looked at my purchases tonight from my surfing. It’s a mad random shopping list. I bought three books of poetry ( two Billy Ramsells and one Grace Wells, keep their names in your head for you will hear more of them). Then I went on to a costume shop's website and bought two Queen’s outfits. A Queen needs at least two gunai (Marmo or Jemser, will ye fada and grammatical me Irish). Then I went onto a wig shop page and bought meself a nice little granny bun.

My latest adventure is reading stories to under 7s in Fingal Libraries on Saturday mornings. I’m calling myself ‘The Story Queen’ or is ‘Queen of Stories’ better?

So I decided to buy a costume or two. Isn’t it great to be able to dress up when you’re fifty and not worry about looking ridiculous? Because you are ridiculous. But isn’t it glorious to be ridiculous!!

So not only do I get to be the Queen, I get to pick all my favourite children’s books and read from them to an (I hope) enthusiastic bunch of smallies. And they’ll love me!! And I’ll feel all important and special! Ain’t Life grand.

BTW ye all better sponsor me for walking the mini-marathon on the June Bank holiday. I’m walking with my sister-in-laws in aid of the Donegal branch of the Alzheimer’s Society. They have been a marvellous support in helping the family look after our beloved Teresa, Jemser’s Mam, Now there is a Queen beyond compare. I wrote the poem below some years ago when the illness started. It is such a horrible disease for everyone. Although Thank the Lord Teresa has been very peaceful for the last few weeks. I love you Teresa Cunningham and I love all your wonderful family and your beloved Kilcar! Are ye all feelin’ the love?

Teresa’s Eyes

Teresa’s eyes, not yet inarticulate

Plead for understanding

She sits. BeWildereD

In the dimmed light

Of blown CoNNections.

Frustration clamping lips

She cannot

Trust

to form

Words

no longer kn-wn.

Sometimes

that obscene shroud of mist

will thin.

Teresa’s raucous laugh begin

Hands clap, face lifts, eyes glint

With Our Teresa.

But mist rolls in again,

Muffling sound and skewing vision.

Will thicken to FOG

Before

Night

falls

Poets Do it Better.........

I had the privilege last night to tune into RTE radio One's Arts slot. It was a great show, featuring a piece on Pat McCabe and some book club. It was a 'weekend' book club, where you stay in a nice house in the country, eat lovely food, drink wine and chat about books. Sounds like my kind of weekend. Anyway the book the group were reading was 'The Seige of Krishnapur' by JG Farell, and I smiled.

I felt I had come full circle with this book because it was the novel I was reading on the first writing workshop weekend I ever attended. It was in Dingle and I finished JG Farrell's magical book that weekend and started writing my own novel(no comparison!) Eoin McNamee facilitated the workshops and I'm happy to say that I kept both the opening paragraph and the last paragraph of the novel much as I wrote them then. I still think they're rather good. Now if only I can get a publisher to agree!

Then came serendipity#2. Colm Keegan (who blogs here) http://theblogsthejob.blogspot.com was reviewing two new books of poetry and he read Grace Well's visceral poem which details some horrific domestic abuse. My novel 'The Heron's Flood' -(my title, the agents call it something else) deals with, among other things, domestic violence so I considered myself relatively aware of the nuances and horror of the whole subject.

But Grace's poem shows the violence in such an immediate light and the language used punches out the horror so well that I think it should be made compulsory reading for everyone. I could not help but be both moved and maddened by it, I felt my blood boil and my heart weep for the abused.When will it stop, people? When will the abusers stop mentally and physically torturing people they purport to love?

Listen to it here. http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena - thurs May 27th Colm makes a great job of reading it, he is a very fine poet and writer himself and it was interesting to hear the poem in a male voice. It added a new dimension, for of course it is not only women and children who are victims.

After all that I was very glad to sit out my back garden as dusk settled and contemplate the Hawthorn tree in full bloom. Thank God for Nature, its capabilities to soothe our souls. Wish I could do it justice in a poem...........

Off to York for the weekend, mebbe I'll be inspired