Enough

 I will not bend the knee

I will not bend the knee

To a man who holds a gun

Against my head and threatens war

Unless I give him what he wants. 

I know this type from seventy years

Of living on this planet

Enough for him is not enough

He’s untethered from reality. 

Unhinged, indecent and chaotic

His soul has disappeared among the rubble 

Bright ideals have been replaced

By evil that’s demonic. 

There is no room for dialogue

With a man who’s lost his mind 

Friends and enemies are better off

When his hands are off the levers. 

He doesn’t care for me

He doesn’t care for you

All words have lost their sense

For he has lost his marbles. 

Bring him to a prison cell

Bring him three meals a day

But never hear from him again

He has nothing more to say. 

Sunday in Kyiv and Dublin

 Sunday Morning 

It’s early on Sunday morning 

Grey, unsure what the day will deliver. 

It’s the the sad and confused ending 

To a month that has left us reeling. 

Memories of cold wars and hot ones

Invade our waking and our sleeping

Shades of Hitler stalk the airwaves 

Distressed survivors on our TVs. 

Kyiv* is up and dressed for two hours

While we were sleeping it slipped into

The same clothes it wore on Wednesday 

The day before the nightmare started.

*pronounced ‘kee-yiv’ 

Young Russian conscripts are parked

Out of diesel and waiting supplies 

Some unsure of where they are

Unconvinced of what they’re fighting for. 

The courage we have seen has roused us

Convinced us that we can turn down the heat 

We are still capable of sacrifice 

That will cheapen Putin’s gamble. 

A bully will not learn his lesson

Without a bloodied nose 

No amount of words will work

Unless we silently pick his pocket.  

We Irish have our own demons

Our populists with loud megaphones 

Who like Putin threaten the fabric

Of what once made Ireland famous. 

Ukraine, you are bleeding 

Before our eyes this morning

The voices of mothers with babes

Carry the seas and the mountains. 

You are welcome in Ireland to stay

For as long or as short as it takes 

Our arms stretch out across Europe

On this unremarkable day. 

Pushed

 He pushed

He pushed and pushed ‘til nothing’s left

No oxygen remained, no room for doubt

Strong as an oak but when he crashed

The noise was heard across the forest. 

He couldn’t yield a single inch 

She beseeched him without success 

Until one day her patience snapped

She took not an inch but a country mile. 

A shock but no surprise 

To her friends and those who knew

‘Beware the anger of the patient woman’

As he strived to understand. 

Concessions offered were discarded 

‘Too little too late’ was all she said

As she fled to Cyprus with a friend 

No fences then for him to mend. 

In wanting all, he’s left with nothing

In denying all she’s taken everything

She won’t look back on sultry evenings

When the sun sets over the azure sea. 

Glad to be freed at last from husband 

And from conscience, floating gently

On the rise and fall of warm waters 

Of the Levantine, peace at last. 

All OK

 Everything’s fine

Everything’s fine, til it’s not

Said the heart patient to the nurse

The night before he died

And left a widow pick up the pieces. 

Kyiv seemed normal on the twenty third

My wife’s birthday passed quietly

We went to bed innocently 

We slept the sleep of the unworried. 

Thursday broke to invasion

From the East and South and North

The odds seemed impossible 

And the trauma too terrible. 

A man known for assessing risk

Had lost all reason and humanity

Taking Napoleon’s curséd route

Backwards and in reverse. 

Should we hope he wins or loses?

If he loses does he push the button?

Be careful what we wish for…

The normal may not last much longer. 

Faithfulness

 I celebrate a man

I celebrate a man who was my teacher

Who adopted our ambitious class

I think of him as I listen to Beethoven 

He played for us in his spare time. 

I think of the afternoons he gave us

Training on the rugby pitch on narrow eves

When winter light vanished early

And mud was everywhere. 

It was more than lessons 

He was good to me and guided

The faltering steps in my career

He had my back in good times and in bad. 

Many years later and we became friends

The difference in age dissolved over time

Intrigued by a man who had stayed faithful

As the bark of Peter lurched and rolled. 

I could have been that man of course

Had he not suggested De La Salle was not for me

If I had not joined the strangest order

That still has me mystified. 

A tall and handsome man he had his chances

There was a woman he found attractive

But could not bring himself to break his word 

Fidelity meant everything to that generation. 

His latter years spent in empty corridors

For few had found the courage or the health

To join him on the journey

That led at last to eternity. 

The Ode to Joy has burst upon my screen

First heard in prefab classrooms in sixty nine, 

Gathers me up in ecstasy 

And leads me to believe that freedom will win out

Some day in dear Ukraine. 

In homage to Brother Thomas Durnin FSC

24/2/22

Neutral

 Our neutral status

Our neutral status suits us fine

As long as no one decides to invade us

Whereupon we will happily embrace

The soldiers who are sent to save us. 

The reality is the world has changed 

Since men fought wars with swords

And  demands some honesty 

And humility in our response. 

Are we happy to see our neighbors 

Children walk to war while we lie back

And protest at an embassy  

And maintain our pristine integrity?

My father often said peace and Justice 

Justice and peace go together 

We can’t have one without the other 

Remove injustice and peace shall flow. 

Along with protests we need to work

To feed the poor here and over there

We each will find a special way

To share our wealth each single day. 

Look after Justice and peace will follow

As sure as night that sequels day. 

Give early, give often

Give more than you can. 

We never miss what is given

To the poor, we always manage 

As they seldom do

As Jesus preached to the very few. 

Others left early to cook the lunch

To welcome the mother in law over brunch

Always good reasons, excuses abound

When only a handful are left to be found. 

Five a.m.

 It was five in the morning

It was five in the morning 

And a painful cough awoke me

Just in time to learn of invasion

And a cruel Kiev crucifixion. 

Breathlessly I followed news

Unwilling to believe that madness

Had come to visit Europe

And graves would fill again. 

Tricked by a view believing that logic

Will dictate the affairs of nations

Forgetting Trump and Brexit madness

Is not confined to English speakers only. 

Man’s inhumanity to man equaled only

By his insanity and chase of crazy causes

War, the first and last refuge of a scoundrel 

Hoping haze will cloud his broken promises. 

Unbelieving witnesses to a war 

That makes no sense and does no favors

To either side whilst cleaving Slavic cousins

And like all conflicts will end in farce. 

Few dictators die in bed

But on the pyre of overreach 

And so this shrunken man

Will disappear as the world applauds. 

Kyiv 24/2/22

 The sky is blue

The sky is blue in Dublin

This bright end of February morning

The sun shines through the wooden blinds

Onto the yellow duvet of my sick bed. 

The clouds gather over Kyiv

And the panicked population

Surprised as we that war might visit

This continent again. 

The golden spires of Kyiv Churches

Are glinting in the sun while bombs rain down 

Not far away the traffic lines the streets

To flee a city ahead of Russian tanks. 

I am old enough to remember clearly 

The Cossacks killing women armed with sticks

On paper stands of nineteen fifty six

And then the quenching of the fire in sixty eight. 

The Russians haven’t gone away we know 

Weakened, poorer but drunk on power 

And memories of a long lost Empire

The most dangerous dream of all. 

Let’s not blame the Russian people

Who have no quarrel with their Kyiv cousins 

Yet again it’s men in suits who send the young

To fight their bloody wars. 

Women of Kyiv I weep for you

For your sons outgunned by tanks

Whose guns will hardly make a mark

On an army drilled for years. 

Does Lightning strike again?

Does killing always return?

Does human nature change a bit

Are we condemned to constant war?

We salute the men who died this morning 

And the many others falling into a frozen grave

We shall remember them by keeping lit

The flame of freedom in our hearts. 

No meeting of Gods

 Our Gods haven’t met

My good friend from school prays to a God

Who hasn’t met mine, it’s as simple as that

Wish it were different but truth must out

And politeness cannot conceal

Our different paths to different Gods

We’re missing a meeting of minds. 

He speaks of his God with charm

And in detail with fervor warm

While I stay mute 

There is little I can say about my God

Except to state what he’s not. 

He shows no interest in race or color

In religious confession or sexual preference  

In some ways remote, not open to prayers

Not confined by words

But close all the same. 

Immense but tiny, remote but intimate

Far and near, great and small 

Understood in the infinite and eternal 

Better described without speech 

In the cease fire of quiet acceptance. 

I catch glimpses of my elusive God

In songs and chant, in smiles of babes,

In daily walks, in cups of tea 

In sunshine breaking through the rain

In Dublin, Wexford and in Spain. 

In dogs that bark, in Taizé chants

In quiet churches in the afternoon 

In Latin Mass where words are lost

And the soul is free to choose 

Helped no little part by ignorance. 

A God who cannot explain away

The evil in this world or in our hearts

 Leaving open the plain choice

To fight for hope or to despair.  

It’s a simple choice we take alone. 

Julia. February-July 1944

 Juliska Revesz (Julia)

Julia was born in February

To a Jewish mother in Hungary

In the University city of Pécs*

The black white photo shows

A baby in her swaddling clothes. 

Nineteen forty four was the year

She entered a world convulsed 

With hatred and with war

Little could she know of the road

That brought her to the camp in Auschwitz. 

Only five months old she was consumed

By the flames of the killing chambers

Never to see the city

With its Roman buildings and history 

A death after life in misery. 

The evil of Auschwitz remains 

The trauma is a reminder

What men will do to men

When humanity is surrendered

On the altar of populist nationalism. 

The camps were freed and were cleared

Now open to the overseas tourist

A monument to madness and insanity 

A lesson that evil will flourish

If good men sit around doing nothing. 

• Pronounced ‘page’.  

My back

 My back

My back was hurting after seven decades

My neck was frozen with the pain

Until one night with no one watching

I took the world and laid it down

Off my shoulders and it was fine. 

What a relief, no little disappointment

That when I rose at dawn that morning

My shoulders free, my conscience clear

The world was spinning as before

Somehow it managed well without me. 

It gave a lesson silent and enduring 

That life continues when we’re gone

The world is patient and ignores 

Our sleepless nights and breathless days

So let’s enjoy our precious stay. 

Weep not world

 Weep not for me

The world whispered in the shadows

One quiet evening when the wind had dropped

And the sea was like a sparkling mirror 

“Weep not for me, I will be fine. 

No, weep for your children who will not

Take a step back and look out 

At the stars at night that stretch

For ever to infinity in a cosmic dance 

Of life and death which is a sampler

Of all existence. 

I will recover when you are departed

And my seas will be restored

All will be well.

You number brave souls who fight

For generations not yet born 

For children they will never see

Not all their efforts will be in vain. 

They will slow down what cannot be avoided

For the dice has been thrown 

The game is over 

But the winnings are yet to be divided.

Bon courage children of the world

Enjoy my beauty while you can

Seize the hour and the day

For despite the carnage you have lit a spark 

That has reached the outer edges 

Of the galaxies and the stars

Who chat among themselves at night

About your highs and lows. 

So along with tears let there be laughter

Which man alone has brought 

And brightened up the Milky Way

At his pinnacle at the noon of day.”