though dynasties pass

the moon rising over the ancient fields at kilcullen earlier this evening

grace

One dulcet afternoon in the year of grace 1978 my American cousin Pauline told me a Jewish friend of hers liked me.
Rather thrilled at my cousin's friend's good taste, I immediately informed my best pal Sean Baines.
My best friend said: "I hate the Jews."
His father was serving with the UN in Lebanon.
"The Jews nearly killed my father," he said. "I hate them."
He called over another child, a freckled sneak called Trevor Lardner, famous for being the only kid in the school nearly as unpopular as me. Lardner on being informed of the matter under discussion, was not slow to chime in with: "I hate the Jews too."
I was 12 years old.
I began to argue with my best friend about what he had said.
We argued the following day as well.
And the day after.
It went on for weeks.
I remember it as the first argument of my life.
The first one that mattered.
The argument that taught me to argue.
At night I would rack my brains trying to come up with an answer that would force him to admit his statement was wrong.
The weeks ran into months.
Each day I would meet up with Sean and try out a new point, or a new angle, or a new charge.
Each day he answered me, at first confidently and with bravado, but after a while with growing unease and no little rancour.
Our epic debate lasted until the first winds of Autumn were blowing through Kilcullen from the Wicklow mountains.
Early in September as we made our way to school for the resumption of classes, I turned to him and said: "Jesus was a Jew."
The argument ended there.

I have known enough of darkness in my life to recognise well the moments of light.
But here's an odd thing.
Any time I have stepped towards the light, I have been vaguely aware of someone or something trying to stop me.
It's happened a few times.
A temptation.
A distraction.
And once in Rome a fully fledged satanic attack.
(Remind me to tell you about that one sometime.)

Mel Gibson spent most of his life making films that will never help anyone to do anything. After a liftetime producing empty hymnals to machismo, he's finally made a film that may have the capacity to genuinely touch people. It does not seem impossible to me that his current woes are a form of satanic attack intended to derail him from a course in life that was moving towards the light.

the poetic manifesto

half heard melodies at dawn
dreams or the traces of dreaming
a woman's name said soft like breathing
memories of faces gone
footsteps in the hall on winter nights
sadness in the heart where love has been
stillness on the fields after a storm
shadows bright with remembering

we will go
through cowardice to bravery
into the timeless eye of mind
across the ungovernable sea
to where all poems have their end
and their beginnings naturally
come with me

strangers

Browsing among the bookshelves in Easons of O'Connell Street.
A pulse in the universe. The crowd parted.
A momentary impression of elegance. Long dark hair. Sensuous lips. The deepest eyes.
There she was.
It was her.
The one I've been meeting accidentally around Dublin for the past five years. About once every six months. In a restaurant. Or cafe. Or in the street. Or in various bookshops. And now, here.
Just fleeting glimpses.
Then she's gone.
She is very striking. A phenomenon of nature really. I always account it a good day when I see her.
But I have never been under any illusions about talking to her.
Never going to happen.
Today in Easons she glanced up and our eyes met.
She held my gaze longer than was strictly comfortable and seemed to reach some sort of decision.
The next thing I knew she was coming towards me. All long hair, clattering heels, stylish dress, fearless eyes. A blur of feminine resolve.
I thought: "Uh oh."
Now she was directly in front of me.
"Hi," she said thrusting out her hand and favouring me with a devastating smile. "I hope you won't mind. I've seen you around the city for years. I almost feel I know you. My name is Nicola."
Well bold travellers of the internet, slap me bum and call me Steiner.
I didn't see that one coming.
I shook her hand. Her eyes contained plenty of encouragement. I felt weak at the knees. I am twenty years too old to feel weak at the knees.
"It's like a Woody Allen movie isn't it?" she said.
I agreed that it was.
Although I've yet to see Woody keel over like a sack of spuds in one of his movies which was what I was in danger of doing.
"You're always reading something intellectual when I see you," she offered.
I showed her what I was reading today.
It was a book on UFO's.
With some difficulty I resisted the urge to tell her I'd recently seen a UFO.
"What do you for a living?" she wondered.
Feeling like a traitor to the cause, I resisted the urge to tell her I was a poet.
"I'm a journalist," I said.
Her adorable eyes widened adorably.
"Wow," she said.
I only just resisted the urge to tell her that I was the worst journalist in the Republic of Ireland, and that editors around the country have pictures of me in their newsrooms, and that underneath those pictures they have written "Do Not In Any Circumstances Hire This Man."
No need for any of that self deprecating stuff. My face was doing all the self deprecating we needed by turning a deeper shade of beetroot with every passing second.
And so we talked.
It is a most intoxicating thing to meet a beautiful women who is also a nice person.
Intoxicated I was.
Later that evening I wandered up D'Olier Street towards Trinity College. I was walking on air.
The homeless man who sells The Big Issue outside Trinity was at his station.
Interestingly enough I've seen him there for five years.
I've never spoken to him or bought a magazine from him.
Years ago because of my insecurities I would hurry past him thinking he was a drug dealer or a street thug.
Of late I'd been simply too embarassed to talk to him, having passed him without a word for so long.
Tonight I approached him.
"Can I have one of those?" I asked.
He offered me a magazine.
"What are you charging me?" I asked.
He said three Euro.
I gave him three Euro and then whatever money I had left in my pocket.
This bold readers is what we may call the Nicola effect.
Driving home to Kilcullen through an early August evening I felt no lessening of its influence.

from my in tray

The following letter has been received by the mighty Heelers.

James,
I presume you are the area journalist for Ballindroher. I presume also that you received notification of the launch of our community group last week.
You can understand my surprise when I opened your newspaper and found no reference at all to our group. Instead I found a story about UFO's.
I am writing to you about this before I write to your editor. I thought this was only fair in the circumstances.
Colonel Dan Trunners.


The following letter has been despatched from the Chateau de Healy.

Dan.
You do a lot of presuming in your letter.
You presume I am the Ballindroher area journalist. (Wrong.)
You presume someone in your group told me about your launch night. (Wrong again. Perhaps a case of too many Colonels and not enough indians.)
You presume I care whether you write to the editor of the Leinster Lootheramawn or not. (Terribly wrong.)
You presume to begin a letter to me using my first name and without the appropriate honoric.
This was the unkindest cut of all Colonel. For I never fraternise with army officers below the rank of Brigadier.
Faithfully,
James Healy
(Sir to you)

"We really lost our shirts at the Galway races this year..."

one for all you fans of the old testament

Many happy years ago the Healy family lived in the bustling Dublin suburb of Tallaght.
The house in which they lived was a veritable chaos of rabbits, football games, chemistry sets, pop music, the Tomorrow People, Star Trek, Time Tunnel and Doctor Who.
One day a kind hearted optimistic young priest, newly arrived in the area, decided to pay a visit to this humble home.
The priest was fresh faced, ruddy cheeked, and somewhat innocent.
The Mammy invited him into the kitchen, put on the kettle, and motioned towards the chairs.
In one arm she held a baby. At her feet, a toddler who would later become famous as Ireland's greatest living poet, sat playing with his yellow plastic bricks. (Modesty prevents me from naming him.) Four other children beetled in and out of the room at various intervals demanding attention, intervention or subvention as the mood struck them.
The good hearted priest looked around wildly for some conversational sally that might establish common ground with the busy mother before him.
His eyes alighted on a canary, sitting in a cage at the window, singing sweetly of the joys of life.
"What a lovely canary!" exclaimed the Padre. "What do you call him?
The Mammy did not turn a hair.
"We call him Onan," she shot back. "Because he's always spilling his seed."