Boyne Writers 24.11.22

Childhood

There was cheers and bees

And apple tree

A river of swans

Where the dawn

Rose in the honey valley’s shadow

We walked and ran

Shot guns of wood

And kissed a girl

And swam in a pool

There

Were dogs with mange

And cats with claws

And a mongrel who followed

Us along trails of dreams

And screams

And springtime treats

With tayto crisps

Mixed with yellow snacks

She was wild

In the head and she smiled

And held my heart

I should have held her hand

And the fish whooshed by and

The gooseberries would cut the stomach out of you

And when it rained the sun was shortly behind

The cowboys killed the Indians

And the soldiers won the war

Before dinner and

The Vikings beat the rest

Before tea

And we smiled

And we laughed

And the music was disco

And trad

And our jeans were ripped

And jumpers were from Dublin

In a black plastic back sent by

An aunt with older boys

With longer limbs and stronger accents

Who were all sophisticated

And the beach was once a year

And she was from cork

And tanned and sweet

And we played ball

And swam and build castles

And the parents drank

Guinness and brandy

And the bar was filled with smoke

And we sat and listened

Of stories with a hint of truth

And he carried us home on his shoulders across

The sands

And school had mad Brothers with metre sticks

For the hidings and teachers in need of prison

And laughter and we took the bruises

And ran and played and forgot the rest

Amidst the noise and the clatter

You stand inside yourself

Comfortable in your silence your words flow gentle in your mind the rapid thinking the peaceful reflections and internal smiles wam the hearth of who you are

Retuning to the true self you open the door to the calm you once loved but feared

If only in days of youth you could have recognised the strength embraced by the gentle touch and the near silent whisper of words

The shake is now gone from the echo of your voice. The embarrassment of a younger you the nervous tremor passes with the scars of life .

When you talk now it’s a whisper which comes from so deep inside of you it’s volume has reduced to near silence yet the words are full of the child inside you never lost

How can you be the writer you are with out clasping dearly to the child inside

The one who held wonder at everyone and everything the beauty of the sea the sounds of the daffodil the touch of the bee the colour of the rain filled sky when the sun defracts the crystals

Even when the volume rises the softness has now returned and the smile of peace with a world where sometimes the sky is a shade of purple and sometimes red and sometimes a vivid blue. Where the man with the cup outstretched touches your soul and you don’t know if he’s tale is true but it doesn’t matter because when his knuckle hits yours he reveals himself to be your brother by virtue of kindred spirits of lost souls who aren’t lost at all but a different shade of the human condition.

Lost to the world of man made mind mangling muscle massing medical mistakes you lost a bit of yourself while gaining a bit you would never forego for it was the journey which mattered but the journey now is softer and gentle and your mind wisps to the ease of the summer stream and your soul touches the world with the gentle kindness of the ladybirds dream

The need to fight the love of a good scrap the blood flow of the lift is still there but different . A changed perspective a controlled rage of beauty where the physical utilisation of the body mingles with the working of the brain. A peace within the chaos

The making of a man who was old when he was young and now young when old. The fake bravery of the drug replaced with the returned courage of the gentle. The loud and boisterous a sand burying shield no longer needed when inside their is no storm to defeat

And the pen feeds your soul. The moments when you transcend reality to touch the reality of the story growing inside your mind the smile as the words flow and when you read them and the people laugh and smile and you feel a warmth because you could sense one of them needed to laugh and one learned something and the rest just for those five minutes forgot their worlds and abandoned themselves to your paragraphs and your gentleness touches the world with a tiny slice of joy

Frankie writing on his return to the peace of the introvert who now understands the whisper reverberates beyond the reach of the scream . The picture is of me with my mam and my aunt chrissie the two most intelligent people I have ever met who’s humour and joy have touched my heart and my mind making me laugh and ponder and love. They have always understood my words and concepts. They have given me their thoughts and understandings and concepts and theories and stories and made me think more than any lecture or book by people of educational prowess. I am forever in their debt. When I hadn’t even a whisper when silence was my own means of communication they were the guardians of my self on this reality which sometimes is difficult terrain for us who aren’t quite the standard creatures of a poorly defined normality

The wisdom of the scars

Wisdom lies

Where the line ends

And along the trail

Of livid white

The cut of pain

Opens the flow

The scarlet path

Tracing the

Sprinkling stars

Where

Clustered thoughts

Delve beneath the skin

Waiting to reveal

The man you become

And the lady you are

For

the mind

Deprived

Of the scars

Loses

The fertiliser

of the soul

Frankie writing stuff

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

Tears drip from blue

To yellow trailing the pain of fear

Tanks roll where babies should crawl

Missiles roar the screams of war

Silk blankets flutter in the dark

Covering the devils incarnate

While air raid sirens cover

The old sheltering the young

Death can’t kill the soul

Of the brave

With pockets filled

For the sunflowers to grow

Freedom can’t be taken

From the spirit of the people

Frankie mcgivney

Excuse the language but fuck you putin you evil Humpty Dumpty bastard

Begin

With yellow roses

Scented on the touch

Of skin fragrent

In morning dew

With translucent glimpses

Of passing ghosts

Behind fluttering curtains

With words lined in order

Of radiant sentences

Constructs of telling paragraphs

In silver lined tales of imagination

With a smile

Radiant through time

Illuminating dusty trails

Where dreams sleep

Between adventure strolls

Frankie writing words 1st Jan 2022

Random

50 dreams are missing and they didn’t use the door

Just screamed a little hole where there wasn’t one before

Now the army and Gardai are searching high and low

For the saints who fell from grace with the rising of the low

The tide is flowing up hill

And the flies are kissing sky

The dreams are in the clouds

And the world is flying high

The birds are on the game now

The wall is crumbling soft

But smile is on the rise

With the mountain’s turning tune

The dew is singing poems

The cat barking songs

And the dog is sipping whiskey

With the burning of the woes

So let yourself be happy

Embrace a lonesome smile

And let the beauty find you

While the sun is in the sky

(C) frankie Mcgivney

Words thrown out random from a mind glad to feel the pen in hand for letters instead of numbers

May happiness embrace your souls

Saturday

They sense the special

In each other

My ma and my daughter

The wonder in their eyes

The gentle strength

Of their soul

The words of my ma

Expressions to explain

The exploration of the self

Is added to by the query of

Her grandchild

Standing over the place of rest

Of my grand parents

Shared with the ashes of my da

Her question with a twinkle

do you get to choose

Your grave neighbours ?

Catching my eye

The one we share in misdirected

Common beauty.

Our laughter mingled

With the words

Reaching beyond the ordinary

To a place where

Dreams embrace the wonder

Of thoughts drifting unheeded

By human restraints

To wonder at the beauty of the world

Where dragonflies drift within the mind

Through rainbow slides of self discovery

Gentleness

He could see it in her eyes the way she looked at him from behind the screen. her hand reached out to touch her son who had returned. The reinstated gentleness in him as obvious to her as the colour of the fields or the taste of hot tea after a walk of a stormy day.

The blood flowing in his veins cleaned and cleared, his mind behind his own eyes softer, more aware of the world around him, with memories fleeting but still there to be welcomed for the precious time until they flittered back behind doors not locked but jammed shut in need of prising open when the inclination would come upon him. Sometimes they just swing open on their own accord. A glimpse of beauty wrapped in a gift of feelings and images and heightened sensory delights.

he recognises in himself the words of the nurse. “when your mother says no she means no” with a smile on her lips for the respect for a woman of determined mind while it roams in a desert of uncertainty and fear.

In himself he embraces the gentleness. his words comforting his soul as he listens to conversations and recognises a calmness he lost among the chaos and the process of living.

not that the time between gentle tides was anything but filled with wonder and joy too. the ebb and flow on the sunny beach needs the ocean’s scream to sing the mellow tune of peace.

(c) Frankie McGivney 10/05/2021 (feeling blessed)

Old ground

Beneath the soil a beauty lies

Born of neglect sown by a love

For nature’s touch upon the soul

Of fauna’s mingling hug of flora

Where nettles wind their stinging leafs

In neighbourhoods with dandelion wisps

Drifting in golden skies and windy

Cites shadowing friendly towns

On the road to blessed villages

Where the pollen feeds the honeybees

Desire to create the earths pure taste

And the webs of spiders draw painted

Designs for flies to rest unsuspecting

For life to pass and the circle to replenish

In the glow of the suns breakfast gift

To evaporate the sweet dew upon the

Green blades where caterpillars chew

The wild garden holds the silence

I crave to enjoy reflecting the internal

Peace awarded to me by my return to

The inherent quietness of a silent youth

(C) frank mcgivney