Today’s Throwback Friday poem is a rewrite of a piece original called “Living On a Knife Edge”(Feb 2019). This poem was one of two, that I submitted to be published in March 2020 , but the other poem was accepted ahead of this piece, and here today I have again revised the 2020 poem.
Living On a Wooden Bridge (Revised)
Fire, fire, there’s raging fires
I need help to stamp out the flames
Burning down this old timber bridge
A traveler’s last causeway to the edge
Carrying today’s harsh realities
Spanning a lifetime of dreams and fantasies
Rain, rain, there’s a Noah’s flood
I need help to stop the cascading suds
Fill the sandbags with riverbed mud
Plug the leakages with woolly rugs
Ring out qualms and doubts
And accept the charity handouts
Warning, warning, there’s a heatwave
I need help to see through the shimmering haze
And peer into nature’s fiery atmosphere tonight
Where millions of her fireflies are alight
Forcing eyes to hear the sound of flashing delights
Gathering above the bridge to be the world’s new sunlight
“The Hosting Of The Shee” a poem by William B Yeats, sung by the Waterboys
The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away’.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away’.
Our armsa-wave, our lips are apart
And if anything gaze on our rushing band
We come between him and the hope of his heart
We come between him and the deed of his hand.
The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away, away, away…’.
Ivor Steven (c) November 2023
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 