Eva Cassidy – Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?
Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Eva Cassidy – Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?
Across the evening sky,all the birds are leaving
Oh but then you know, it was time for them to go
By the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I do not count the time
for who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
Sad,deserted shore
your fickle friends are leaving
oh, but then you know it was time for them to go
But I will still be here
I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
for who knows where the time goes?
I know I’m not alone
while my love is near me
I know that its so until its time to go
All the storms in Winter and the birds in Spring again
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
who knows where the time goes?
who knows where the time goes?
Irish Castles : A Lament for Kilcash – Monday Poetry
Irish Castles
Kilcash castle
Nigel Borrington
A Lament for Kilcash
Now what will we do for timber,
with the last of the woods laid low?
There’s no talk of Cill Chais or its household
and its bell will be struck no more.
That dwelling where lived the good lady
most honoured and joyous of women
– earls made their way over wave there
and the sweet Mass once was said.
Ducks’ voices nor geese do I hear there,
nor the eagle’s cry over the bay,
nor even the bees at their labour
bringing honey and wax to us all.
No birdsong there, sweet and delightful,
as we watch the sun go down,
nor cuckoo on top of the branches
settling the world to rest.
A mist on the boughs is descending
neither daylight nor sun can clear.
A stain from the sky is descending
and the waters receding away.
No hazel nor holly nor berry
but boulders and bare stone heaps,
not a branch in our neighbourly haggard,
and the game all scattered and gone.
Then a climax to all of our misery:
the prince of the Gael is abroad
oversea with that maiden of mildness
who found honour in France and Spain.
Her company now must lament her,
who would give yellow money and white
– she who’d never take land from the people
but was friend to the truly poor.
I call upon Mary and Jesus
to send her safe home again:
dances we’ll have in long circles
and bone-fires and violin music;
that Cill Chais, the townland of our fathers,
will rise handsome on high once more
and till doom – or the Deluge returns –
we’ll see it no more laid low.
Kilcash Castle located on the county Kilkenny / Tipperary boarders but firmly in county Tipperary is one of the most haunting places to be found locally. It has a long history that started with its construction in the sixteenth century by the wall family who latter passed it on to the Butlers of Ormond who much latter sold it to the Irish State in 1997 for £500
Brief History of Kilkash castle and the Poem
By the late 20th century Kilcash Castle was in a dangerous state of repair, and it was sold to the State by the trustees of the Ormond estate for £500 in 1997. It is undergoing extensive structural repairs to save it from collapsing. But this means it is covered in scaffolding and the site is closed off to visitors.
The author of the popular Irish poem and song Cill Chaise (Kilcash) casts himself back in time to mourn the death of Margaret Butler, the former Lady Iveagh, in 1744. Her death moves the writer to lament her tolerance and to compare the cutting down of the woods of Kilcash with the destruction of the Gaelic way of life.
But the woods were not destroyed by the English, but through their sale by the Butler family, who needed the income to supplement their new lifestyle in Kilkenny Castle.
Traditionally, the poem has been attributed to Father John Lane, Parish Priest of nearby Carrick-on-Suir, who was educated for the priesthood at the expense of the former Lady Iveagh, the deagh-bhean or good lady in the song. However, the dating is misplaced, for Father Lane died in 1776 and the sale of the timber at Kilcash was not advertised in local newspapers until 1797.
Although the timber was sold off between 1797 and 1801, the earliest manuscripts of the text do not appear for another 40 years, which means Cill Chaise was written no earlier than the early 1800s, but perhaps much later. The air seems to be Bliadhin ’sa taca so phós mé (This time twelve months I married), which was collected by George Petrie in Clare and published in 1855.
Flow from the Mountain Spring : Poem “A Mountain Spring” – by Henry Kendall
Waters flow from the mountain spring
Slievenamon
Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet
Of thunder and the wildering wings of rain
Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,
And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;
But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain,
Year after year, the days of tender heat,
And gracious nights whose lips with flowers are sweet,
And filtered lights, and lutes of soft refrain.
A still, bright pool. To men I may not tell
The secrets that its heart of water knows,
The story of a loved and lost repose;
Yet this I say to cliff and close-leaved dell:
A fitful spirit haunts yon limpid well,
Whose likeness is the faithless face of Rose.
Henry Kendall
Flow from the Mountain Spring : Gallery
Friday Poetry : in the Valley Of Slievenamon , Charles Joseph Kickham
The Valley Of Slievenamon
Irish Landscape Images
Nigel Borrington
Alone, all alone, by the wave-washed strand
All alone in the crowded hall
The hall it is gay, and the waves they are grand
But my heart is not here at all.
It flies far away, by night and by day
To the times and the joys that are gone.
But I never will forget the sweet maiden I met
In the valley of Slievenamon.
It was not the grace of her queenly air
Nor her cheek of the rose’s glow
Nor her soft black eyes, not her flowing hair
Nor was it her lily-white brow,
‘Twas the soul of truth, and of melting ruth
And the smile like a summer dawn
That sold my heart away on a soft summer day
In the valley of Slievenamon.
In the festival hall, by the star-washed shore,
Ever my restless spirit cries.
‘My love, oh, my love, shall I ne’er see you more.
And my land, will you never uprise?’
By night and by day, I ever, ever pray
While lonely my life flows on
To see our flag unfurled and my true love to enfold
In the valley of Slievenamon.
Charles Joseph Kickham
Poems by Charles Joseph Kickham
Three Poems about the Beach
Sandy Beaches
Morgan Swain
Sprinkle, squish between my toes,
The smell of ocean to my nose.
I can feel each grain of sand,
It falls from air into my hand.
The shells I find along the shore,
Picked up by birds that fly and soar.
They sparkle like the ocean’s waves,
And carry sand from all the lakes.
I walk along the tip of the sea,
That’s where my feet leave prints to be.
I walk all the way to the end of the land,
The land that holds this beautiful sand.
The Sensations of Summer
Sibel
As I lay on the sand
And look up at the sky
I can see the sun shining like a diamond up high
The whooshing waves wash endlessly upon the shore
These are the sensations of summer that I adore
Nothing could replace this moment
Not anything
I pick myself up
Step in to the sea
Forget all my thoughts so my mind is free
As all my troubles drift away from me
I go deeper into the rushing water, letting the waves take control
These are the sensations of summer that I adore
The Beach
Amy R. Buzil
It’s a day when the ocean waves whisper to the sun:
‘Warm me up sunshine!’
And they try to throw their rays
right at me,
painting my white skin
into a golden tan.
The fingertip of the wind
brushs against my left cheek.
The clouds try hard not to move.
I see them
crawling inch by inch.
I Look down at my toes;
the hot pink nail polish;
sinks into the warm sand
the grains adjust to my movement.
Rough.
I gaze out into the water
shining like cherry-flavored lip gloss
and diamonds held in a blue blanket.
I lean back into the pinkbluepurple of the wind,
where it leaves a colorful touch on my arm
and I feel as I could blow away
at any time..
Monday Poetry – The Eagle By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Eagle
The Eagle
Nigel Borrington
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Mountain Poetry, Ride the foothills by : Denel Kessler
Foothills of Slievenamon
Irish Landscape images
Nigel Borrington
Denel Kessler
Chinook Skies
cobalt rain
rides the foothills
mountains conspire
in malevolent
cloud lairs
beneath gray waters
she treads
the warming sea
in constant current
scaled desire
burnished crimson
silver sleek
with ripened need
she lives to die
upstream
Friday Poem , The Valley And The Mountain Top
The Valley And The Mountain Top
Though standing in this valley
with yet the mountain top in view,
I will indulge my aspiration
to see the sights from that point too!
This will be my challenge,
to get from here to there!
I’ll see the view from the mountain top,
and breath the mountain top air!
This is quite the challenge I chose
but I must make it to the top!
If the attempt determines
the success or failure,
“No way now can I stop!!!”
There it is! I can see the top!
Mere feet am I away from my goal!
This challenge has pushed the limits,
I believe of my heart, mind, body and soul!
Though standing on this mountain top
with the view of the valley below,
I indulged my aspiration,
from my indulgement
this I do know!
As wonderful as the view is from here
to as far as the eye can see,
I must never forget where this started from,
with the view standing in the valley!
House By The Sea – Poem by N Nobu
House By The Sea – Poem by N Nobu
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she.
Where sun sheltered
from the waning moon
myriads of stars
and the lightning beams.
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she.
Where fireflies lit the sky
crickets sang nearby
and gentle waves kissed
the golden sands goodbye.
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she.
Fought a little, talked a lot
danced with the breeze
cherishing moment of
bliss and peace.
They lived
in a house by the sea
he and she
.
She stooped a little
he antiqued a bit
there vision dimmed
with every passing cloud.
She died
In a house by the sea.
Mermaids tell he never cried
for he knew
Lovers never die
and she awaits otherside
where sea meets the sky…..
Landscape poems, “His Dream Of Skyland” by Li Po
His Dream Of Skyland
The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss,
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves.
But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say,
May be seen through cracks of the glimmering cloud.
This land of the sky stretches across the leagues of heaven;
It rises above the Five Mountains and towers over the Scarlet Castle,
While, as if staggering before it, the Tien-tai Peak
Of forty-eight thousand feet leans toward the southeast.
So, longing to dream of the southlands of Wu and Yueh,
I flew across the Mirror Lake one night under the moon.
The moon in the lake followed my flight,
Followed me to the town of Yen-chi.
Here still stands the mansion of Prince Hsieh.
I saw the green waters curl and heard the monkeys’ shrill cries.
I climbed, putting on the clogs of the prince,
Skyward on a ladder of clouds,
And half-way up from the sky-wall I saw the morning sun,
And heard the heaven’s cock crowing in the mid-air.
Now among a thousand precipices my way wound round and round;
Flowers choked the path; I leaned against a rock; I swooned.
Roaring bears and howling dragons roused me –
Oh, the clamorous waters of the rapids!
I trembled in the deep forest, and shuddered at the overhanging crags,
one heaped upon another.
Clouds on clouds gathered above, threatening rain;
The waters gushed below, breaking into mist.
A peal of blasting thunder!
The mountains crumbled.
The stone gate of the hollow heaven
Opened wide, revealing
A vasty realm of azure without bottom,
Sun and moon shining together on gold and silver palaces.
Clad in rainbow and riding on the wind,
The ladies of the air descended like flower, flakes;
The faery lords trooping in, they were thick as hemp-stalks in the fields.
Phoenix birds circled their cars, and panthers played upon harps.
Bewilderment filled me, and terror seized on my heart.
I lifted myself in amazement, and alas!
I woke and found my bed and pillow –
Gone was the radiant world of gossamer.
So with all pleasures of life.
All things pass with the east-flowing water.
I leave you and go – when shall I return?
Let the white roe feed at will among the green crags,
Let me ride and visit the lovely mountains!
How can I stoop obsequiously and serve the mighty ones!
It stifles my soul.
– Li Po. Translated by: Shigeyoshi Obata
County Kilkenny Landscapes and a Poem : Like Barley Bending, Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933)
Barley Field
County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Like Barley Bending
Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;
Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;
So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.
“The River rowers” By Sarah Lyn
River Images
Nigel Borrington
Sarah Lyn
Me and Jessie T
Rowing down cedar creek
oar in hand, smile on our faces
intoxicated steering
trees scraping our backs
cant stop laughing
just keep rowing
In the Silence of it All ~ Lily Mae
In the Silence of it All, Nigel Borrington
In the silence of it All
Lily Mae
Flower, sometimes when I stare up into the clouds
I feel such a part of something divine
like there is an energy that passes through me
from all times and I feel so loved
Yet…here we are you and I
cupping our hearts in our hands
while sending unconditional love out
to the ones we love and I wonder..
Flower do they feel it?
Close your eyes Sweet Lily and you will know
Connect with the passion burning inside you
that he alone has brought luvingly to your soul
feel the vibration of the universe as thoughts intertwine
among the orange streaks across the sky
The blackened night brings favour for you and I
for in the silence is where our thoughts collide
when everything around them stops and is still
that’s when they truly feel us
That’s when they close their eyes…..and they know too
The Farrier, by : Robert L. Hinshaw
The Farrier
Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
The Farrier
Robert L. Hinshaw
He billed himself as an expert in the field of “equine podiatry”,
Better known as a farrier for farmers and the cream of society!
Keeping horses shod and their hooves polished was his vocation.
With horseflesh he’d had many an interesting confrontation!
He always had a roll-yer-own dangling from his lips,
And a blackened leather apron wrapped about his hips.
His jaw was set and with biceps wrought of tempered steel,
He’d strike the anvil with his hammer – what a rhythmic peal!
In his jumbled shop he’d shod animals of many breeds.
Donkeys, mules, ponies and prized Arabian steeds.
He shoed critters pulling covered wagons to unknown frontiers,
And many a cowpokes cayuse for the round-up of his steers!
One detail they didn’t cover when he was in farrier school,
Was how to deal with the occasional cantankerous mule.
Many times he’d found himself sprawled upon the dirt,
With the outline of a hoof imprinted upon his shirt!
Tho’ his profession never guaranteed a life of glamour,
And knowing he’d not get rich wielding a tongs and hammer,
Yet, it was challenging working with ornery mule and horse,
Always hoisting their hindquarters very gingerly of course!
Night on the Mountain, By George Sterling
Night on the Mountain
By George Sterling
The fog has risen from the sea and crowned
The dark, untrodden summits of the coast,
Where roams a voice, in canyons uttermost,
From midnight waters vibrant and profound.
High on each granite altar dies the sound,
Deep as the trampling of an armored host,
Lone as the lamentation of a ghost,
Sad as the diapason of the drowned.
The mountain seems no more a soulless thing,
But rather as a shape of ancient fear,
In darkness and the winds of Chaos born
Amid the lordless heavens’ thundering–
A Presence crouched, enormous and austere,
Before whose feet the mighty waters mourn.
On Contemplating a Sheep’s Skull ~ Poem by: John Kinsella
All images taken in the Nier valley, county waterford
Fujifilm X100
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
On Contemplating a Sheep’s Skull
Poem by John Kinsella
A sheep’s Skull aged so much in rain and heat,
broken jawbone and chipped teeth half-
gnaw soil; zippered fuse-mark tracks
back to front, runs through to base
of neck, widening faultline under
stress: final crack close at hand.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
White-out red soil unearthed
from hillside fox den and cat haven,
now hideaway for short-beaked echidna
toppling rocks and stones, disrupting
artfulness a spirit might impose,
frisson at seeing counterpoint.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Sometimes avoid the spot to avoid
looking half-hearted into its sole
remaining eye socket; mentally to join
bones strewn downhill, come apart
or torn from mountings years before
arriving with good intentions.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Not something you can ‘clean up’,
shape of skull is not a measure of all
it contained: weight of light and dark,
scales of sound, vast and varied taste
of all grass eaten from these hills;
slow and steady gnawing at soil.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Neither herbivore nor carnivore,
earth and sky-eater, fire in its shout
or whisper, racing through to leave a bed
of ash on which the mind might rest,
drinking sun and light and smoke,
choked up with experience.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Drawn to examine
despite aversion, consider
our head on its shoulders,
drawn expression
greeting loved ones
with arms outstretched.
John Kinsella is Founding editor of the journal Salt in Australia; he serves as international editor at the Kenyon Review. His most recent volume of poetry is Divine Comedy: Journeys through a Regional Geography (W. W. Norton) with a new volume, Disturbed Ground: Jam Tree Gully/Walden, due out with W.W. Norton in November 2011.
Randolph L Wilson’s Poem : Red Farm Tractor
The Red Farm Tractor
Nigel Borrington
Red Farm Tractor
Randolph L Wilson
I long for the smell of fresh turned soil , an experience I’ve never forgotten ..
The smell of diesel , oil and grease ..The ringing of harrow and bush hog …
My Liberty overalls and size ten clod hoppers , suede cowboy hat , pocket watch and Bloodhound tobacco ..
Bob White Quail walking the wood line waiting to
get their fill of turned ground morsels , grains and grasshoppers ..
Curious Whitetailed Deer hiding in the shadows , Redtailed Hawks
with a keen eye for field rats escaping the plow ..
A sixty two Massey Harris that ran like a’ Top ‘ through rain
and heat , never missing a beat !
My mind prays for the simple life of man and machine , the brushfires
of March , the restoration of God’s green earth ..
The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain By Wallace Stevens
The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain
By Wallace Stevens
There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,
How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,
For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:
The exact rock where his inexactnesses
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,
Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.
Through the Gate Down the Lane, gareth culshaw
Irish Landscapes, County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Through the Gate Down the Lane
Through the gate down the lane
all the colours, splits in path
creaking, cracking, axed by frost
scythed by time.
Through the gate down the lane
footsteps left, gone to dust.
Voices in the limbs of trees
shaking leaves when the wind is in.
Through the gate down the lane
where summer has been only once.
Scorch marks of light left behind
the house is nettled, broken, still.
In the Valley, a poem by : Stephanie Nicole
In the Valley
Irish Landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington
Stephanie Nicole
Jun 25, 2014
In the Valley
I’m having a rough time with it again.
It’s like mountains and valleys.
If I’m feeling great
I can make it to the top of a mountain.
But right now I’m down in the valley.
And looking at the next mountain,
I don’t want to climb it,
Because I know that beyond it there lie
More valleys.
So I may just stay here.
Three Poems about Orchid’s
Faranani
Feb 23, 2014
Purple Orchid
“Purple Orchid”
A symbol of rare beauty
Exotic. Delicate. Mysterious
Precious, in every way
Lost in a tropical land of
Purple Haze,
I am there
Whispering with a tinge of
Innocence yet wild
With passionate dark desires.
A calm stability of blue and
The fierce energy of red
Stimulating mystery and thrill,
A darkened flower
Of refined passion
With strikingly lush petals,
Intoxicating.
In his mind,
I am
A
Purple Orchid
Kayden Fittini
Apr 23, 2015
Petals of an Orchid
Graceful curve of the flower enriched with mystery
melting away any bubbling misery
walking towards the beauty.
(I’m looking to pull this special flower today.)
Wait shall I praise the wonderous bloom
with fragrant colors infused within me soon
something to admire on a daily
choosing between multiple types that look equally lovely.
(I just want to love you.)
The vanilla scent which never fades
you rose from a bed of vibrant shades
to hold and caress –
in your walk stems artistic introduction
keep me within your symmetrical seduction
And in your radiance glimmers across the horizon and seas
its in your nature to please while you tease –
but i cant lie, your approach continues with ease.
to compare your style with nature only makes sense.
how lucky can one be to build a connection that’s so intense!
I pluck the fascinating petals of an orchid.
Colin Carpenter
Apr 12, 2013
Wild Orchids
Your colors diffuse in hushed streaks
across synapses,
as empty spaces also become orchids
and butterfly petals reach for a scent
their counterparts in rain.
A fringed April is actually an orchid.
Le Balcony , By : Charles Baudelaire’s
Mother of Memories
Nigel Borrington
Le Balcony , By : Charles Baudelaire’s
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O you, all my pleasure, O you, all my duty!
You’ll remember the sweetness of our caresses,
The peace of the fireside, the charm of the evenings.
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!
The evenings lighted by the glow of the coals,
The evenings on the balcony, veiled with rose mist;
How soft your breast was to me! how kind was your heart!
We often said imperishable things,
The evenings lighted by the glow of the coals.
How splendid the sunsets are on warm evenings!
How deep space is! how potent is the heart!
In bending over you, queen of adored women,
I thought I breathed the perfume in your blood.
How splendid the sunsets are on warm evenings!
The night was growing dense like an encircling wall,
My eyes in the darkness felt the fire of your gaze
And I drank in your breath, O sweetness, O poison!
And your feet nestled soft in my brotherly hands.
The night was growing dense like an encircling wall.
I know the art of evoking happy moments,
And live again our past, my head laid on your knees,
For what’s the good of seeking your languid beauty
Elsewhere than in your dear body and gentle heart?
I know the art of evoking happy moments.
Those vows, those perfumes, those infinite kisses,
Will they be reborn from a gulf we may not sound,
As rejuvenated suns rise in the heavens
After being bathed in the depths of deep seas?
— O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
The dreams of a young racehorse
Dreams of a racehorse
There was a young horse he was just a foal
he was very friendly a lovely little soul
the foal he had a dream that he was in race
running very fast as he set the pace
running round the track faster than the rest
Proving to the others that he was the best
heading for the finish line and heading for the post
this is what he dreamed of, the thing he wanted most
taking home is trophy, a great big golden bowl
he dreamed he had grown up and forgot he was a foal
Dreams of foal
Nigel Borrington
Monday Evening Poetry : Aparajhitha Sudarsan, That sunset…
Kilkenny Sunset
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
That sunset…
A distant look in her eyes,
Stretching beyond the horizon.
A battle long fought,
In her dreams so surreal.
A thousand miles did she walk,
Before pausing to rest.
But the lights began to fade,
For it was time for her sunset.
Nigel Borrington 
You must be logged in to post a comment.