Native Return - Shakespeare's Monkeys

Native Return

When I go into the West my voice will change
through Augher and Clougher and Fivemiletown;
the wind and wild seas of the Celtic fringe
will remember me returning home to bog and bawn.

I hear the sea gulls' keening vault in waves
up Donegal bay - they're crying "Lazarus Lazarus";
the wind is full of God where the mountain heaves
to heaven over vast Atlantic rises.

And in our midnight cups, the ghosts will come
through river rain and water light;
like children of Israel searching for home -
within their parting seas we float our weight.

Anstey -
There's such an irish feel to this, that sort of bardic longing, and the motion of a minstrel. I'm not sure about 'midnight cups' i'm going to have to look that up. It almost seems a bit tarot.

U668857 -

Thanks, Anstey. "In my cups" is an old idiom (I think).

Just got this from google:

"IN HIS CUPS" - "Drunk. Long ago the phrase meant both drunk and participating in a drunken bout. It appears in one of the Apocyrphal books of the Bible (I Esdras 3:22): 'And when they are in their cups, they forget their loue(love) both to friends and brethren.' The Romans had similar expressions, such as Cicero's 'in thy cups, in the midst of thy revels'
(in ipsis tuis immanibus poculis), suggesting the great age of the association of 'cup' (poculum) and 'carousal.'"
"The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).

I'm sure I've come across it in Shakespeare also...BRgds.,Alan.

Aesthetic Psychosis -

It's been a while since I've read your poetry, but it's nice to return to it. I think the internal rhyme that you've worked into the poem works well with the near-rhyming ends to each line, regardless of whether or not it was intentional.

It struck me as odd that there's a reference to Israel in here, when the poem is, from what I can gather, about Ireland. It almost makes me do a double-take, but I accepted it at face-value after a few seconds. I guess that's something you could think about, but I'm really just tossing out minutiae for your consideration.

And, I guess, the meter is interrupted by the second line of the last stanza. I feel like you could work a strong verb into the line that might enhance the ending. In any case, nice to see you and yours again.

U668857 -

Many thanks for Review, AP.

Yes - I might change "looking" to "searching"....the Israel reference I suppose is the idea of lost exiles searching for a homeland again...the parting seas is a play on the Exodus story and other metaphoric seas....

Good to hear from you again....BRgds.,Alan.