The Two Travellers

By David Jordan

Two tramps stopped on a country road,

Holding a conversation.

Shoulders back, chests proud,

Their heads adorned with caps,

Holding themselves like kings.

 

One has a bottle in his hand, paper bagged.

The weight of it: it keeps them grounded

And nonchalant.

For their bodies seem to merge

And they are animated and full

Of the joy of their art.

 

And all around them everything is animated

And singing: the sky, the mountains,

The flowers, the path.

Everything is numinous.

Everything is in concert.

Everything is alive for that one single ecstatic ‘Yes’!

 

Two tramps stopped on a country road,

Holding a conversation.

Both knowing the nobility of being free.

On Steve Harris

By David Jordan

Like Hendrix, you pushed your instrument

To the fore

And created a unique sound,

All your own.

 

Nobody plays like you.

 

Fast and melodious,

Full of sweet fills,

Your fingers tapping madly

Like a moth’s wings.

 

Slow and dulcet,

The calm exquisite hand

Only a real bass player

Can bring.

 

Fast or slow,

A true metal hero.

Proud:

You cut through like a sword.

Dubliners

By David Jordan

Close to perfection,

This word magic, alchemy of the word.

This complete word world spinning,

Wrapped in its grey, urban ambience,

Softly singing,

So fresh. So clear and fresh

Like a soft spring.

And characters that come to life.

These characters are the undead:

They will never die!

And always they will bring the ecstasy

Of instant recognition.

 

Yes, when every story hits the spot;

When every line glows and sings

You know you’re in Dear Dirty Dublin.

On Joyce

By David Jordan

A genius in the wood,

The wood of the postmodern,

A genius at play, dancing,

Lighting the way

With good laughter and song.

 

Scealai!

File!

The grey wood’s guiding light.

Star of Ireland:

Its angel and its eye.

Son of light,

O flower of the fair city

Won’t you show me again?

On Yeats

By David Jordan

Thoughts born out of nowhere

Like the goddess Athena.

Your mind flashing with intuition.

 

Or, under the sun, a sword

At play, flashing

On a perfect day.

 

With a blade that kept its edge

And its passion over time,

As the darkness came.

On death cast a cold eye

He dared to write.

 

The sweet sounds, rhythms

And repetitions:

Instinctual, musical, masterful.

And the imagination

Like a Titan, towering,

Watching the ever changing, soaring

Pleasure dome.

 

And the discipline of the

Craftsman, the technician,

Shaping the iron, ever cooling,

Working it into perfection:

The master at play.

 

A wordsmith:

This man was born to do it.

The Unreflected Life

By David Jordan

I awoke to muddy boots,

My clothes soaked and stinking of urine.

Reject of Dionysus I am.

 

I remembered everything:

Stumbling in the dark, on the grass,

On the riverbank, like a rat.

Reject of Dionysus I am.

 

I can hear his laughter.

Old habits and behaviours reappear,

Madness, danger and fear.

Wasted days, wasted years.

Reject of Dionysus I am.

 

Damn you Dionysus!

With your leopards

And your laughter

And your car!

 

I follow Apollo.

Gladly, I toss away my thyrsus

On the riverbank.

 

I awake from stupor

To reason and intellect and imagination.

To the spring of the muses,

So cool and clear and clean.

Yes, there is nothing better on this earth,

I tell you, than to kiss that limpid water.

One Day

By David Jordan

One day

When I’m out of bed, bad blood and

Curses, maybe I’ll smile under the

Cool moon.

 

See her wrapped in a

Cloud mantle,

Reveal herself,

Then cover up again.

 

See her hang there, full,

Like a silver pendant.

 

A calm unwinking eye.

 

See her radiate and glow

The way women glow

Sometimes.

 

See her move slowly and

Silently across the sky

Like a huntress.

 

What else can I do but try

To please her with my pen,

Solitary, romantic old fool

That I am?

 

The Citizen

 

By David Jordan

I swear these long nights

Stir my blood

And steer my spirit northward

Like a long boat headed home.

 

For the imagination feeds

On the darkness like a flame

And tonight I imagine myself as

A man of the North:

Cross countenance, long bones.

Leaping on to the sandy shore.

 

Bringing alien gods to the natives:

The loquacious Gael.

The nature loving, melancholy,

Aristocratic Gael.

 

After a thousand years

Surely the stranger is gone from the house?

 

Tonight, I swear I am a citizen

Of the imagination:

Emancipated.

In flight.

Ghost Train

By David Jordan

The carriage rocks you into a semi trance.

Everywhere you look there is a reflected countenance.

Across the aisle a mother and child

Play pen and paper games

With subdued voices.

A man drinks beer from a can stoically.

Strangers exchange non-committal words

And glances.

 

Then the darkness descends outside,

Bringing with it a feeling of dislocation

But also solidarity

As we are visited by the ghost, Society.

 

When we arrive our brief companionship

Is broken up with polite smiles and

Valedictions.

Society disappears once it has done its task:

To keep the darkness out,

Defeat the monster in the glass.

Castle Freke

By David Jordan

The sky was on fire.

The sea, monstrous

As we walked on the hazardous

Roof of the old Big House.

I was high on destiny.

 

Night fall, full of fear,

We left the fire to commune

With ghosts in the pitch black

Rooms and corridors.

 

Someday, if we ever return,

We will look for ghosts of ourselves.

We will stop and listen for footsteps

And voices

And we will watch for figments of lighter

Flame in the darkness.

 

For who can deny the sweets of memory?

It is easier to deny the raging sky

And the ravenous sea.