Berkeley, CA
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EVERYTHING IRISH ABOUT ME
IN A NUTSHELL
My mother's church in San Francisco was called St. Brigid's, my church was called St. Catherine's, I was told I had the map of Ireland on my face, said "Mither, I want me mush" when I was a kid, my best friend in kindergarten was called Kathleen Ahern, I went to parochial school, wore a navy blue uniform and beanie, had priests called Monsignor Burke, Father Cushnahan, and Father Coffey in our parish, my smart girl rival in Catholic school was Marleen Dunne, Paul and Philip Murphy, the twins, were the milk boys at school, Darragh Flynn could run faster than me, I collected holy cards, hoarded silver dollars in my sock, was sexually repressed, committed minor sins but still thought I was going straight to hell, took the "pledge" when young, I think, I forget, I had an alcoholic uncle who was the family secret, I had very pale skin, blue eyes and dark hair, my childhood enemy was Marylou Mahoney down the street, her mother thought I was the ringleader against her daughter, I wore green on March 17th, said I was "English, Irish, and Scottish" when asked what I was, I went to Mass every Sunday, knelt down before the radio for rosary recitation, I sunburnt to a crisp, had a spinster schoolteacher aunt called Agnes, I never thought of going to Ireland, but went to France three times, my mother was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, feisty politico, go-straight-to-the-top type woman, her son was favored over three daughters, I love potatoes and sweets, and often feel I'm starving--that's everything Irish about me in a nutshell--except I'm always running late, love to chat, and I am a poet.
Everything Irish
by Judy Wells
1999
P.O. Box 20906, Oakland, CA 94620
ISBN 0967022401
$12.95
ORDER INFO: www.scarlettanager.com
6x9,perfectbound, trade paperback
126 pages
Cover art: An adaptation of the initial "D" from Collectio Canonum, Cologne Cathedral Library, Germany. Copyright at Classic Designs, Ltd., 1992; reproduced with permission by L.J. Young pubsher, The Mills, Blarney, Co. Cork, Ireland.
Cover design: Judy Wells, Dale Jensen, Scott Perry
Book design: Scott Perry of Archetype Typography
Back cover photo: Olivia Eielson
Typography: Archetype Typography, Berkeley, CA
Judy was featured at the 2014 11th Annual Irish-American Festival, "Crossroads," reading from Everything Irish and other books.
WHAT WE FORGOT
"Beware, beware, Mac Conglinne,
lest the gravy drown thee!"
The Vision of Mac Conglinne
12th century
For 4th and 5th generation
Irish-Americans
We forgot our language
We forgot the land we came from
had rolling green hills
We forgot our songs
We forgot our stories
We forgot we were cattle people
We forgot our voyage tales
where the West didn't mean
only Death
where the West meant
Tir na n'Og
The Land of Youth
where there was no decay
We forgot the islands of women
The land in the sea
surrounded by sea horses
We forgot the sea
was a plain of red flowers
which Manannan mac Lir
thundered through in his chariot
We forgot we ever had a vision
of a silly land of surfeit
where we rowed on a lake of milk
skimming cream
where castles were made of
butter and lard
and our palisades, of bacon
We forgot we had cheese gates
and cheese stepping stones
and a voracious demon who slipped
inside our mouths
in an apple
whom a cleric called Mac Conglinne
enticed from our king's gullet
by enumerating
all the things
the demon liked to eat--
curds and whey
and milk and lard
and bacon and mutton
and buttered rolls and mead
until the demon couldn't stand
it anymore and leaped
from the king's throat
and there were lands
where you could eat a bird's egg
and then sprout feathers
and lands where the fragrance of
crimson trees satisfied your hunger
and lands where multi-colored birds
blue, crimson, and green
sat three in a row
and sang away your grief
and Yeats tried to tell us
but only a little
And we tried to forget in America
We wanted real bacon
in our bellies
and we wanted shoes
and then we wanted fancy red-flowered hats
and we wanted an education
so we could become lawyers,
and nurses and school teachers
so we would not have to be domestics
and serve roasted birds
to "our betters" who would never sprout
feathers
Never fly as we did
with the knowledge of our tales
over seas of red flowers
over seas of red flowers
We forgot, we forgot our tales
and remembered only
dark seas
and coffin ships
We forgot our seas of red flowers
and Manannan mac Lir on his steed
galloping to meet us
where we were
Queen of the island
with 17 daughters
Queen of the island
with 17 daughters
Copyright 2015 by Judy Wells.
LIGHT AS THE HOLY GHOST
Father Cushnahan
who could rip through a Mass in about 20 minutes
once slid back the confessional door
and burped
in my ear.
I wonder now
whether he kept a bottle of brandy
in there to keep him company.
And was he the one
who laughed at me
when I finally dredged up
my decade old mortal sin
because I was flying overseas
and didn't want to go straight to hell
when the plane went down
over the Atlantic?
And of course the sin was nothing really,
your classic "I told a lie in confession."
I pretended I missed Mass on Sunday
when I had nothing else to say
but once you've told a lie in confession
you've really done it
because it's a sacrilege
and then you go to Communion
with a mortal sin on your soul
and you've just compounded your guilt
and then you do the same thing for 10 years
till you're a Mother Lode of mortal sins
and by God, you better confess
before you ever take an airplane trip
because you're bound to be on the doomed plane
with Satan at the helm
so even though Father Cushnahan
burped in my ear
and laughed at me
and only made me say about
5 Hail Marys
and 5 Our Fathers
for 10 years of sacrilege and guilt--
the same penance as if I confessed
I was mean to my sisters--
I sailed out of that confessional
light as the faint scent of booze
on Father Cushnahan's breath
or the Holy Ghost
ready for any flight
anyone wanted to put me on
and this is the power of religion
and this is what makes you a believer
and this is what makes you a poet.
Copyright 2015 by Judy Wells
IF A BIRD ENTERS YOUR HOUSE,
SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE.
Old Irish superstition
Last summer on the Aran Islands,
on that great slab of limestone called Inishmore
we awoke to a great whirring
in our room.
Dale looked behind the curtains and found
a bird beating its wings between
curtains and window pane.
He shooshed it out.
"Don't worry," he said.
"It didn't really get into the house."
We were about to embark on a pilgrimage
to Northern Ireland,
once more in quest of my ancestors.
We searched for the dead
not knowing the dead was with us all along.
In America, on my return, my sister Nancy
said matter-of-factly on the freeway
as her husband drove us from San Francisco Airport,
"Agnes died on July 22nd while you were away."
I heard the bird beating her wings
between curtain and window pane,
the message half-delivered,
my aunt's soul
making that last, hard passage
leaving human body, reluctantly,
reluctantly, for life
on the other side.
2015 Copyright by Judy Wells
Copyright 2015 Judy Wells Poet. All rights reserved.
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