Ronnie McGinn's Poetry Page
| If you have a poem you'd like to see published in The Irish Examiner then send it to:
The Poetry Corner
The Irish Examiner USA
1040 Jackson Avenue, Third Floor
Long Island City
NY 11101
or, preferably, you can email it direct to
ronniemcginn@eircom.net.
If possible keep your poem to 20 lines. You may choose any subject you like, in any form you like as long as it's original. We look forward to hearing from you. |
Most of what can be said about a poem is likely to give the impression that it is something printed on paper but this is not altogether the truth. The printing on paper is really a poem second hand.
It would be easier to see this if we were talking about a painting or a sculpture. When a writer on art wants to talk about a painting, he can print a small reproduction of it, either in colour or in black and white; and you know that this reproduction is not the actual painting.
It is the same with music: books about music contain musical illustrations, and these are meant to be heard inside the head, as a kind of sound-picture of something you might hear in a concert hall.
But with a poem it is different. I don't mean simply that a printed word is a notation for a spoken sound: true, it is this; but it is also something more: it is a notation for an object or an idea. This may seem obvious when you think about it, but it is often forgotten.
The Wooden Floor
I loved free life, and I loved fresh air,
I greeted the seasons with passion and care,
And waited for spring, to kiss Cork's green hills,
The snowdrops, the crocus, and daffodils.
An evening stroll was heavenly,
When my own true love would walk with me,
Down the Marina, by the River Lee
She was as sweet as the flowers that grow,
And she was as wild as the breezes blow,
With her sparkling eyes, and her flowing hair,
Her beautiful smile and her teasing stare,
She would kick off her shoes, grin at me
Dance in the short grass under the tree,
Down the Marina, by the River Lee.
Sunshine and summer, life, heaven and love,
All the green below and the blue above,
And her crimson lips, and her smiling frown,
We lived for love as the stars looked down.
While natures chorus sang harmony,
A green leaf fell from an old, old tree,
Down the Marina, by the River Lee.
I loved free life and I loved fresh air,
Now there is only, an emptiness there,
A Sparrow Hawk hangs, high up in the sky
And watches the world below move by,
While I drift like a ship, lost at sea,
Walking alone with a memory,
Down the Marina, by the river Lee.
© Ronnie McGinn
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