Irish strength

When the crown killed

Our children with hunger

Feed through greed

A nation learned to fight

By

Talking with words

Rhyming lyrical beauty

While saying nothing at all

A rich culture

Devoid of material wealth

Adorned with tales

And sceals

Of Swans sailing across

The wide sea to heavens door

Silence holds the strength

The foreigners never could

Sense within the feelings

Of the mothers in the uplands

Who dug stones with hands

Worn of nails

And skin trailed with tears

Wept for children

Starved

A genocide fed

Of potatoes rotted

And crops on ships

Set sail for English lands

Frankie mcgivney writing of a march day after listening to a historian waxing lyrical with mr tiernan

You forgot the end again

You forget where it began

Drifting from your eyes

Your fearful grip

On strands of words

You write each time

Her name her hair

Her smell her eyes

Lost to be refound

Through blurred notes

On unworthy slips

Of yellow and green

You make her laugh

You make her smile

You use your smarts

You use your words

To hide the fear

The darkness wins

Once more

The emotions remain

But her name

Even her name

Flounders on your lips

You forget when it began

But the agony of the end

Tightens it’s grip

repeats

To fade into a memory

Forever lost once more

You loved her once

You love her still

You will love her once again

(C)frankie Mcgivney

Why

Do you allow the fear to win?

When all it takes is a no.

–

Do they use their saws?

To plunder tbe air we breathe.

–

Dont your words refect?

The island of your dreams

Where beauty evolves

Among the imagined fear.

–

Would you think like they do?

When all they know is wrong

Because it doesnt come from

Where your imagination holds

The hand of your thoughts

–

Do you not love the image?

Reflected in the mirrors eye

Revealing the tale you tell

The one you are to you

–

Does love not realise?

The battle it must win

Wbere hearts trail in scattered

Lines of hope lost among the

Sands of lives forgotten tears

–

Do you forget your past?

The sunny picnic fields

–

Do you not forget the past?

The tears the fears the hate

–

Do you not learn the lesson?

The reason we need to fail

–

Do you forget the lesson?

The failure you used to succeed

–

Does the frown over awe?

The struggle of the smile within

–

Does your touch upon the eartb?

Not reflect the gentle soul of you

–

Do you refuse a gentle word?

To make the sad ones smile

–

Do you kill and maim and hate?

Not live and heal and love

–

Do you queastion the unwise?

When they see it as a challange

To overcome their previous best

–

Do i not see the you?

The real one beneath the cloud

–

(C) frank mcgivney june 2019

Rambling crosskiel road races

Passing screams of bikes

Leather clad fans of speed

Swish by my walking mind

Listening to words wise

On the blues to make the

Melancholy shoes trample

The green fields to hear

The summer time tune

Of blue tit wings fluttering

The line well worn where

Beauty waits for the touch

Gentlly strong grasping

The joy of dew dripped

Strands of natures gift

(C) frank mcgivney

Touch

He touches your skin

With trembling hands

Looks in your eyes

And

Your name

Echoes on his breath

His fingers on

Your cheek

He smiles

His body shudders

Inside your mind

His body crumbles

You feel

His hand

caressing

your scream

Once more

He waited

Until then

His lips upon

You

He whispers

From below

Into your heart

What you knew

When his eyes

And yours

Made us

(C) frankie mcgivney

For My Daughter

Her First Confession

 

Blessed with water, wrapped in blankets of white

Their tiny hands held our hearts tight

Filling our souls with joy

The pink of a girl or the blue of a boy

 

Wax dripping from the candle

That takes its place upon the mantle

Of homes that they light

With smiles that shine in their eyes bright

 

As school friends, they gather once more

Lined up with family in the pews pure

God’s gifts blossoming to flowers

In the town of Loyd and Round Towers

 

Bless me father for I have sins so mild

The pranks and tantrums of being a child

Holy Father cleanse our innocence

Pray hear our words of penance with your benevolence

 

I’m Sorry God, Connected

Songs sung as parents reflected

On the wonder of their flock of Belles

As fair as any page from the Book of Kells

 

The kind words of the Priest

Permission in lent for a treat

Cleansed and pure wee doves

Ready now for the white dress and gloves

 

© Frank McGivney 10 March 2014

kells

Here’s a bit of an auld poem or whatever you would call it about the town I live in, which I just wrote because sure why I wouldn’t I. 
Kells
The people pass me by while I walk 

With the pages of my words in blue

My pen is black my hair gone grey

My dreams still a rainbow of hope

They nod and smile and I reply 

With a wisping joy of a home I found.

And the pubs stand with open arms

And there’s more Chinese food than

Native grub to purchase in silver trays.

The cross has a head missing and when

I stare the pagan in me sees the 

Beauty of the three spirals designed 

In the wind and truck beaten stone. 

The book, they pilaged to the place 

Where the west brits learned the rules 

Of domination, is missing, driving the

Spirits of the monk’s half lunatic mad

In the quest for their coloured pages. 

They look and can’t find their inks.

A tower is round, a saint’s home square

I sit in front of a wall writing auld words 

Some which rhymn and some which shock 

And inside I remember the people who 

Came before me from this historic mammoth

Of artistic beauty and wealth of creativity.

While somewhere beneath, a river runs, avoiding 

The stone chasms which need pile-driving to 

Penetrate the heart of a place where a gypsy 

King lies sleeping in gold beside the graves 

Of nuns and people of all shapes and sizes

I meander along the boulevard with my 

Thought which turn into wonder seeking

Moments of eternal relaxation while 

Around me they all seem to do the same.

The tale ends with a sun set over a spot 

Where the Vikings plundered and Cromwell

Marched and the monks hid and the priests

Said their auld prayers to the devout masses

From books at a hidden alter by a well

And the world is for a moment as it should.

© Francie McGivney 26.06.15

#hayfestivalkells Hay Festival Kells

The Final Fight

The Final Fight

I took the home you had inside

I fed the cat until he died

I showed you how to love a man

Was I the greatest lover you ever had

You slapped me once on Sunday night

You burnt my clothes after a fight

You held me tight that day I cried

You were the greatest love I ever had

I read you poems I wrote with chalk

I hit you once when you refused to talk

I took your dreams and held them tight

Was I the bastard you dreamed at night

You took the dog, the house and hope

You found a lover to help you cope

You rode us both on the same night

You were the one who won the final fight

© Frank McGivney 29.01.15

Music a poem and a mention of whiskey

Went to Tommy Fleming concert tonight. The Sligo man has a golden voice smooth as honey sliding down a blade of morning dew on grass.
Her indoors put in a request for hard times the song not the aspiration and didn’t he only song it, the hero. Well she was only delighted with herself and it was the best song of the night. The woman obviously had good taste.

So I feel a poem coming on and here it is I hope :

I want to write the words
The words of honey and wine
To sweeten your soul
And intoxicate your heart
I want to put it down on a sheet
Of musical lines an octave above
The sound of silent heartache
And when you sing it my love
I want you to sing it for my heart
To fill it with the joy of your voice
(C) frank Mcgivney 18. 10. 2014

There it came out alright I love honey and wine although whiskey and beef are things I prefer.