prrovincial poets

 

this morning i read through the works of brian byrne

traced the words and music he had drawn

and after wondered as to what degree

his musings held in the rank halls of poetry

i scorned the traipsing metres and the mind

which brought them to this world i became

a defiler in the temple of the muse

now in broken spirit i start again

let the works of byrne shine thus

no greater and no less

than the darkness glistening in homers verse

no more high or low

than keats first pure clarion call

which whispered in the timbrels of its gleaming

even a savage has feeling

even the gods must fall

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Footnote: If WB Yeats wrote a poem about me calling me a bollox, I'd be flattered. The closest I came was when a local Academician called Sean Landers wrote a series of magazine articles satirizing me about twenty years ago. I think Brian Byrne is doing very well for himself. I have built him a monument more lasting than bronze.