A Little Bit Of Culture...

A little bit of Culture... Poetry from soc.culture.irish

Poetry Worldwide (all else....)

Posted by K E Dennis
on: 12 May 2000

Here's one from the Hiberno-British poet George Barker [his family roots were in Dundalk].

From: The Golden Chains
George Barker

George Barker: Collected Poems
ed., Robert Fraser
London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1987

13.

The sanctuary wren, the white
swan, or the dove,
O have they ever quite
known what they love?

The heart in the foliage
of its dark song
dies of this knowledge
all its life long.

16.

My love, my love, my love,
coiled round the stone,
strike to the marrow of
my walking bone.

Still at the give and take
the suck and shove,
one and one never make
one O my love.

23.

Never my love, never come back to me.
The night is gone.
Two ghosts sir shivering by that golden tree
and dawn comes on.

"With every breath like a fever
alive and dead
I love you forever and ever' -
So we said.

26.

Feather upon my lips,
yes, as you tremble
I feel at my finger tips
like a huge cymbal

the heartbeat of all things
sound and resound
till its pulse, like the crash of wings
shakes all around.

30.

Queen of my soul, be silent.
words cannot speak enough
to signify all I meant
when I spoke of love.

Between the wilderness and moon
we lie at night and seek
that silence, like an unheard tune,
deeper than we speak.

38.

Lips silent in the evening sky
like a heron's wings
your silence marvellously
works secret things.

'Love is a silence that
like circling birds
moves round the past tense at
the heart of all words.'

45.

Arms, arms around me, fold
us close, ah, close together;
the stars are shivering in the cold
of Time and bitter weather.

The moon is up, and the sea
mourns in the lonely light.
Ah, fold, fold your arms around me
closer tonight!

49.

All poems lie because
words cannot carry
this heavy water that was
struck from the very

rock of the heart.
It pours unheard
Through the hand and the art
of the word.

62.

I whisper to you, daughter
and wife of my desire,
I drowned in the water
I burned in the fire

I hanged in the forked tree
and now I am dead.
Ah, once again, love, come to me,
even in this cold bed!

--- The End ---