I flicked through channels, looking for some show
Where guests would put the decade in a frame
And hang it. Surely there’d be one…but no.
The fifties, sixties, seventies…had they
Expired like this, uncommented upon?
I didn't think so, even though they say
You never see the Zeitgeist till it's gone.
My father hated end-of-year reviews
Nostalgist though he was, the same as me.
A dinosaur addicted to the news.
This was the first New Year he wouldn't see.
Tonight, bizarrely, he’d be missing from
The New Year's hooly that his best friend threw
Year after year. So I’d agreed to come
Although I felt uneasy in that crew.
They sang all night and drank to beat the band
And I'd heard decades of familiar tales
About them (sometimes more than I could stand,
Weary of tracing their well-trodden trails).
All socialists, republicans, and such,
Children of Pearse and Connolly and Sands.
Their slogans (though not mine) were double Dutch
To this new Ireland of Big Tech and brands.
We’d moved to Sillogue Gardens just a bit
After my mother’s death, when the Twin Towers
Were newly fallen. Though we’d lived in it
For eighteen years, it never quite seemed ours.
Our New Year hosts had lived there all the time
I’d been alive. It was their realm. And yet
Its atmosphere was not the sad sublime
Of rebel ballads, rosy with regret.
The New Year's hooly that his best friend threw
Year after year. So I’d agreed to come
Although I felt uneasy in that crew.
They sang all night and drank to beat the band
And I'd heard decades of familiar tales
About them (sometimes more than I could stand,
Weary of tracing their well-trodden trails).
All socialists, republicans, and such,
Children of Pearse and Connolly and Sands.
Their slogans (though not mine) were double Dutch
To this new Ireland of Big Tech and brands.
We’d moved to Sillogue Gardens just a bit
After my mother’s death, when the Twin Towers
Were newly fallen. Though we’d lived in it
For eighteen years, it never quite seemed ours.
Our New Year hosts had lived there all the time
I’d been alive. It was their realm. And yet
Its atmosphere was not the sad sublime
Of rebel ballads, rosy with regret.
To me, at least, the Gardens still preserved
Their nineteen-eighties vibe, all teenage pop
And roller-skates and bubble-gum. It’s where
I’d seen most of that kid’s stuff, growing up.
Their nineteen-eighties vibe, all teenage pop
And roller-skates and bubble-gum. It’s where
I’d seen most of that kid’s stuff, growing up.
Who would recall the twenty-teens like that?
And what about the noughties? Just a name.
The view down twenty years was almost flat.
I strained for images and nothing came.
Well, New Year’s Eve. I took my corner spot.
The early-party awkwardness went by.
(They spoke more Irish than I thought, this lot.)
I listened to a story from some guy.
The night advanced. The rebel songs began.
The grievances of decades filled the air.
Songs lend us life beyond man’s natural span.
My father sang these songs. He wasn't there.
And what about the noughties? Just a name.
The view down twenty years was almost flat.
I strained for images and nothing came.
Well, New Year’s Eve. I took my corner spot.
The early-party awkwardness went by.
(They spoke more Irish than I thought, this lot.)
I listened to a story from some guy.
The night advanced. The rebel songs began.
The grievances of decades filled the air.
Songs lend us life beyond man’s natural span.
My father sang these songs. He wasn't there.
And as the night wore on, the party seemed
Almost a wake…the old spoke of the dead.
So few this year, where once this house had teemed
Each New Year's Eve. That's what my father said.
Almost a wake…the old spoke of the dead.
So few this year, where once this house had teemed
Each New Year's Eve. That's what my father said.
The rebel ballads ended, and they sung
“The Boxer” and “the day the music died”.
The decade's final hour was almost done.
We went to see the fireworks start outside.
Kisses and hugs and phone calls and bad jokes.
“Next Year in Jerusalem” my father said
Each New Year's Eve. We stood and tried to coax
Some sense of wonder. Someone went to bed.
My father, mythmaker, was now a part
Of that uncertain sure thing, history.
Covid was next. Oh, hapless human heart,
What hopes and fears you fix on memory!
“The Boxer” and “the day the music died”.
The decade's final hour was almost done.
We went to see the fireworks start outside.
Kisses and hugs and phone calls and bad jokes.
“Next Year in Jerusalem” my father said
Each New Year's Eve. We stood and tried to coax
Some sense of wonder. Someone went to bed.
My father, mythmaker, was now a part
Of that uncertain sure thing, history.
Covid was next. Oh, hapless human heart,
What hopes and fears you fix on memory!
I find this a very moving poem, and, curiously, all the more moving for its particularity to your own life, and to your father's. Nobody else could have written it — by which I don't mean a comment on your distinctive style, though it is also perfectly true that it is unmistakeably one of yours — but I mean that nobody else, or almost nobody else, could have been in a position to record it, and almost precisely the uniqueness, almost the frailty of the subject matter, lends the poem strength even before you take up your craftsman's tools.
ReplyDeleteIt's very striking, the way you have woven together three periods of history; the old Irish nationalism, the 'roller-skates and bubble-gum' of the 1980s, and the 'new Ireland of Big Tech and brands'. As always, you make it look easy, but one sign that this kind of 'rich simplicity' is difficult to achieve in poetry is that it is so rare — which is why I treasure it when I find it.
Thank you for sharing this poem, and may your father rest in eternal peace.
Thank you so much for those very kind comments, Dominic!
DeleteI think the poem could have been better but I got a bit tired of it. But yes, the particularity is exactly what I was striving for. Nobody outside of Ballymun, pretty much, has ever heard of Sillogue Gardens. I liked the idea of combining something so particular with much bigger collective experiences like the change of a decade. And "frailty" is a very good word.
I spent a long, long time writing poems from the point of view of fictional characters, often people whose life experience hadn't remotely resembled mine. I suppose this imaginative projection is an important part of writing, but perhaps it is more authentic to "write what you know", to use the venerable advice.
Very evocative
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Anonymous! (Can I call you Nonnie?)
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