Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats

Midsummer Eve Edward Robert Hughes 1908

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

         Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

         And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

                Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

                        But here there is no light,

         Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

                Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I couldn't let the day pass without revisiting my favourite John Keats poem, Ode to a Nightingale. It always makes me think of a beautiful summer night. Today marks the bicentenary of his death in 1821. He was only 25. In my chapbook I include a poem called John Keats' Ghost but here I'm going to add another he inspired, which appeared in Skylight 47. 

An Mhaighdean Mhara

A Mermaid John William Waterhouse 1892

I wrote this poem in response to the song An Mhaighdean Mhara which I heard on the radio last night. I thought it was gorgeous. The song tells the story of children saying farewell to their mother who returns to her life as a mermaid. I know people are finding life hard at the moment in varying degrees, but do stay strong. Even something like listening to music can take one out of themselves and brighten the hours. Take care readers.

An Mhaighdean Mhara

(The Sea Maiden)

 

Drawn back, once again, to the shore,

in the distance they see her gently wave,

in joy and happiness to greet them,

her land children.

 

In the grey-blue dawn,

in the tide’s roar, they call Mother! Mother!

Two plaintive gulls, hopeful

as the foamy water breaking,

 

rushing in, making sand slate.

She cannot stay, sheds earthbound Mary Kinney

with one more loving glance and a flipping tail.

Further out to sea a bob of seals gather.

 

Orla Fay

Cathalbui Poetry Competition 2021

This poem of mine was recently published in the Cathalbui Poetry Competition Entries Anthology 2020. It was written a couple of years ago. 

The 2021 competition details are below:

Cathalbui Hedge School – Belcoo, Co Fermanagh

PRIZES:  1st £100: 2^nd £60: 3^rd £40. Plus a trophy in each category.

Winners announced at Cathalbui Hedge  School, Healthy Living Centre, Belcoo:

11.00 am on 12 July 2021  (May be on zoom again this year but will inform)

Entry is free – Closing date:  17 April 2021

Send to: belcoopoet@gmail.com

RULES

1. Include a name and address.

2. Place your unpublished poem in the body of the email (times new roman script font size 11) – not an attachment.

3. The judges’ decision is final

4. Say if you don’t want your entry published in the annual anthology. 

Timetable for 12 July Hedge school:

11.00am: Competition poems, judges’ comments and readings. Poetry readings.

2.00 pm: Joyce symposium: Finnegans Wake.

The Gloaming

 

The Gloaming

after a pen & ink drawing by Greg Hastings

 

All roads are middle ground, a cutting

through space and time. All journeys are paths.

We venture through sleep on liminal highways,

night what comes after this setting sun,

this brightly wrought prospect of dreaming,

this melting of torc by dusk.

 

Starlike celandines and buttercups implode,

and autumn gorse dresses a lane to sea,

that place where Plath went blackberrying,

that just-over-the-horizon entity, magnet of death,

centre of chaos, conversely of order, and peace –

in the eye of the storm, the centre of life.

 

But this light is not fenced in, pours, spills

out over barriers, not unlike water, or words,

races ahead in thought, makes colour silken,

embellishes blue with green. We know these lines,

this form, walk through prisms of existence,

find ourselves stopping – an outsider looking in.

 

Orla Fay

The Gloaming is written after a pen and ink drawing by West of Ireland artist Greg Hastings. His Instagram page can be viewed here. 

Drawn to the Light Press Issue 2

 

My online journal Drawn to the Light Press has just published its second issue which can be read here. This edition features poems by Glen Wilson, K.S. Moore, Maeve McKenna, Susan Connolly, Linda M. Crate, Patrick Chapman, Marie Studer, Paul McDonald, John D. Kelly and many more. 

The submission period for issue 3 will open in April.