Exhibit

Exhibit

In a gallery, seemingly asleep in a glass box

lies an ancient ceramic vessel,

colourful, shamanic, symbolic,

raised from a Peruvian tomb.

Taught by nature,

magically dreamed into being.

washed by snowmelt rivers,

showered by freshwater springs and fountains,

dried in a forest of pine

scented with cedar, rosemary and thyme.

Now in a museum, alive with folk

whose footfall is gentle,

their every step soft.

In sweet slices of silence,

time stands at ease and

I am neither lulled nor coerced

to spend time in its company,

I am happy to absorb its energies

admire its artistry

and recognise it as a masterpiece.

Cait O’Connor

 

The Braggart

Who knows himself a braggart,

 let him fear this,

 for it will come to pass

that every braggart shall be found an ass.

William Shakespeare

 

The Braggart

His name was Lewis,  was in a Big Business,

son of a freemason,  he was L O U D.

I found him lewd,  one to avoid,

the oily type of Tory, plump and puce of face,

everything about him was whizzbang, pop,

over-stuffed, high on emotion, like in the song.

A true braggart, he indulged in boastful talk

spoke in iambian speak so everything was ee-an

as in  Ital -eean, Christ – eean, Boston – eean,

Had been to Cambridge and to crown it, you’ve guessed it,

he was an old Eton – eean, chauvinistic to a fault.

He didn’t walk, he lolloped,

in such an ungainly manner,

 a cliche from a bad novel

the part in a play no man would covet.

I thought my sister’s marbles must be missing

but did my best to be polite and pleasing.

The hours passed but not fast enough;

I wanted the evening to shrink.

I wanted to shrink.

My favourite Irish proverb

things are never as they seem

was for once proved wrong.

 

Cait O’Connor

 

Motherhood

Motherhood


There is stillness now in their night sanctuary,
caught by a slant of light. A new mother 
is basking in the brightest light; sweet talking 
and soft lullabies silenced for a spell.
Shining on us, even by day, we are 
dazzled by her smile, many will fall under
its spell, succumbing to all things royal.
Princess, new baby and a motherless 
child lie close, safe in perfect symmetry.
Slowly the night ends, silken in its subtlety
as the summer sun rises and the day begins.
Waking from her dream, the princess is regaled
again, the newborn cries as babies are wont to do.
A grand mother looks down from the abode
of the blest, the motherless one has dreamed 
her into being. The provision, power or 
province of a future king can never heal 
such a deep and everlasting primal wound.



Cait O’Connor

 

Control

 

 

Control

 

He was the puppeteer, she the marionette.  He was handsome,

she hung on his words, ensnared by their candour.

He brought flowers, seemed earnest in his ardour,

He was manipulative, she was submissive.

She should have listened to mother, who said

never trust a man who will not meet your eye.

She laughed it off, far too soft,

down to her very last curl.

The puppeteer was a plotter in control,

soon she became his puppet, 

tried and tested to a high specification.

Rows ensued if she broke down, became loose,

disengaged or tried to break away.

One day huge cracks appeared;  a split  occurred,

She finally snapped and when they became uncoupled,

he was shriven, spiteful, selfish.

Instead of crumbling, she was dignified,

she forgave and wished him well,

before she left him, more in sorrow than anger.

 

Cait O’Connor

 

 

 

 

Beware of the Wolf

 

Tsars Ivan, the son of the grey wolf

Viktor Vasnetsov 1889

 

 

Beware of the Wolf

 

Unknown  to her, he was deadly, like nightshade

A crow or raven would have taken flight;

even a dog or a deer would have caught his scent but

she, gentle, like a bird, was shaky and only ever looked upward to the stars.

She thrived on romance, didn’t  notice the morass that she was nearing

nor the embers  burning beneath it.

She knew only how to give, to hold and not  break faith,

there was no finite quantity to her love.

Not fond of measuring, she couldn’t see they did not fit,

but he had sized her up and his lure, though tempting, was deeply insincere.

His ways were knaveish, wolfish,

more than a match for the naive or the squeamish.

His actions were shameless, slippery, dead to all honour.

A dealer  in the shabby, paltry, cunning and oblique,

he borrowed from her with a bribe and

in an extortionant, dishonest manner,

like a loanshark,  he stole away her innocence.

 

Cait O’Connor

Summer Sunday

Artist D Luckins

 

O Curlew, cry no more in the air,

Or only to the water in the West;

Because your crying brings to my mind

passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair

that was shaken over my breast:

there is enough evil in the crying of the wind.

 

William Butler Yeats

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Sunday

Sunday, surely a day for chasing sun, not shadows?

Waking from a fractured sleep, where fractions

of my heatwave dreams still held me in their grip,

I rose to walk in my garden where a riot of  roses

had joined forces with lilac

and wild honeysuckle was chasing the exuberant ramblers. 

I took in their sensual delights as their blooms

smiled at the world with such a joyous expression.

The songbirds’ chorus was drowning the valley,

the river joined in with its gentler, summer melody.

There seemed to be so many shades of green,

the skies were wide and blue, the sun seemed full to bursting,

the palette a perfect backdrop for a midsummer work of art.

I loved how the birds nest in every nook and cranny

(whatever a cranny may be) and then I remembered

that yesterday on the Epynt mountain, an old friend had returned,

I had seen a curlew, and realised I had so missed its eerie, heartfelt, cry.

Soon my bad dream’s grip was loosened and all worries were forgotten,

for there is always hope in nature’s balmy days like these,

days to savour in the dark and sometimes trying times of winter.

 

Cait O’Connor


PS   I have posted some of my Summer Sunday photos on my other blog, Cait's Photos which can be found here

 

Andy Murray Wins Wimbledon

Summer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Butterfly

A Rarity

A Monarch butterfly, regal wanderer,

flies from the bottom of the world over

field and meadow, prairie and city, her

migration secret,  always unfollowed.

Such rarity, a welcome migrant in

a hostile land, queen of all her domain.

Dark-veined, extravagant, she flies on stained-

glass wings of ochre, tawny citrus and the

darkest ebony.  She craves the sweetest

milkweed, not for her the parched aridity

of stony common land laced with groundsel,

or ragwort, that noxious old-man-of-the-spring.

For scarcity value she is priceless;

no-one’s familiar, no mere butterfly

which is quickly viewed and soon forgotten 

 

Cait O’Connor

Progress?

There is more to life than increasing its speed

Mahatma Gandhi

The F Word

 

Fast flies the new ‘F’ word:

fast bucks,fast speech, fast food,

fast broadband, fast cars,

fast planes, fast phones, fast trains,

even faster planes, even faster trains.

Fast news in short staccato bursts

(this and only this is what you

need to be fed today).

Education a game, degrees worthless,

genius sidestepped, 

no time in life for daydreaming,

imagination fades.

Eyes fixed on screens; brains shrinking,

attention spans reduced to almost nil.

Original thought struggles for survival,

(mostly missing, presumed dead).

Libraries closing, books burning,

those without souls worshipping speed,

uniformity and conformity.

Tick-box fanatics with disjointed thinking

wanting us to sacrifice our souls,

and meekly follow their commands

and to do it fast

 

Cait O’Connor