Mayo Alive
- September '98
Selected poems from the works of William Brendan Mc. Phillips
Foreword
William Brendan (Bill) Mc. Phillips hails from the Bronx and is currently living on Long Island. He grew up at Church Street, Ballaghadereen, on the Mayo/Roscommon border. Bill is a prolific poet, whose work covers a wide subject area.
Naturally enough, given his background, many of his works deal with memories of yesteryear, the place he grew up in and the recollections of childhood that sticks out in his mind.
For me, much of his work is wonderfully evocative and helps to bring back memories of days that are forever gone. He writes with a sense of humour and simplicity that I find appealing and I feel many callers to this site will find, like me, that their memories will be inclined to wander after reading his work.
Bill has a very extensive selection of his poems on- line at his own site, which can be found at: William Brendan McPhillips A POET ON A MAGICAL JOURNEY HOME
SOMETHING THERE IS
His name was Matty Ward and he
Made pots and kept the chimney free
Of soot that, otherwise, would choke
The fire and fill the house with smoke;
And Matty lived inside a tent
And said it was what God had meant
And had his children by a wife
Who gave him love and joy and life,
Until some thought they were too old
To live against the rain and cold
And so they bought a caravan
And it was painted brown and tan
And Matty tried it 'til the night
On Aughalustia Road the light
Drew half the town to see it turn
To rubble and to ash and burn.
And sitting next night on the grass
We handed 'round the globs of glass
And Matty grinned, again to be,
"Thank God!" outdoors and safe and free.
In cyber time the glowing coal is not
The way it was when bellows blew it hot,
In back of New Street in the blacksmith shop
When horses shod would dance to hear the clop.
The smoke and soot were worth it just to see
A bar of iron burning into me
And hear the anvil ringing steel on steel
And muscle taught to mold the mind and feel.
He'd let me hold the tongs sometimes and try
To hammer down the metal but the eye
Was always closer than the arm I swung
To hear the song I'd heard so often sung
And now in cyber time I try to hear
The boyng-a-bong, bong bong ringing in my ear.
Once underneath the Aughalustia Bridge,
A day of clouds hung on horizon's ridge,
I fished for pike, but never thought to catch
The one I did, too small to fit the match
Of wanting what I never had before,
A pike to turn into a piece of lore.
There where the river Lung turned wide and deep
And swirling pools could swallow leaves and keep
A boy from being tempted to go in
Too far above the ankle bone or shin
And I went out alone to be and wish
For something bigger than a tea time fish.
The pike was young, the way I was, and took
A gamble on the worm around the hook
And trapped he gave his body to the fight
Against the force beyond his line of sight
And I was trapped, as he was, in the bind
Of wanting something mostly in the mind.
The hook and I were more than he could take
And in the tension felt his spirit break
And dragging him across the water saw
A pike whose mouth was red and torn and raw,
And in that mouth I shoved my right hand thumb
To break his neck and make his anguish numb.
It was the way we did with perch and trout
And no one ever mentioned how a snout,
So like a duck's, was full of teeth to bite
In anger, fear and self defense and spite,
And that was when the blood began to spurt
And I began to lose it to the hurt.
Now bloodied too, in agony, I tried
To end the fight and save a little pride,
But nothing done was equal to the source
Of life, I found, against the use of force.
And silence worse than any rant or rail
Cuchculain ever gave a poet's tale.
The river told me "Throw him back and leave!"
But overhead the sky began to grieve.
And kneeling down above him in the grass
I prayed a living presence there would pass;
And then the Postman passing, on his bike,
Got off and showed me how to kill a pike.
The gods were good to me and let me go
From year to year without a pike to show
And if I live to be too old to care,
"I'll never fish a pike again! I swear!"
Nor be enthused of heroes who would turn
The rivers red, or cause a home to burn.
Towns and villages in County Mayo, Ireland
