Poem: For my Best Friend on her Wedding Day

A poem for a friend's wedding day long past but well remembered. Both of them are the sort who will joyfully and consciously grow old together, falling deeper in love every day.  Such a life blessing exists for those who truly value it and themselves, therefore hope springs eternal.

For My Best Friend On Her Wedding Day

There is no shame in luxury,

or laziness,

or sloth,

when time to practise them is wise,

and benefits you both.

We work and slave and struggle

so to keep our basic things,

for we deserve everything,

all riches owned by kings.

Yet we don’t deserve a scrap of bread,

nor the right for it to sing.

We will eat when others starve,

and live, while others die.

The honest are sent to the chopping block

while we escape, and lie.

There is no earning,

no reward,

no deserving what we make.

There’s no difference between what we give,

and what we really take.

Struggle has no meaning

other than that to survive.

And in the act of struggling,

I forget just how to live.

Struggle is for status,

and status is for fools.

In my life’s Swiss Army knife,

it’s the stupidest of tools.

So every action that you take

make conscious,

and with love.

Evil is not in the vice,

but intemperance thereof.

New Poem: Growing Up

Growing Up
by A.R. Carter

When my demons fall

I weep with relief,

excised of the gangrene

of youthful bad permission,

my conscience leaden with deep-six freedom

from the lonely, poisonous things

that I summoned long ago

out of curiosity, and a strong constitution,
thinking myself immortal.

Now, death has swept by too often,
I have felt her wings too close;
then she takes another,
and I count in thankfulness
my hard and merciless virtues.

The moral stanch of silence 

stops my heart’s bleeding.

Silence here is warm and full of sun-dust,

rippled only by the trains' insistent schedule.

My silence is like the smell of bread,

simple and richer than Solomon.

Incensed by peace, 

the beasts of boredom

shriek at my nothing affluence

pleading for a fresh finite vein

to bite into and suckle.

But for sanity’s sake,

my bitter cold breastplate has no time

for whines and bipolar tears.

And my own smug nothing cries, 

empty within

trading compassion for sanity,

a profit-loss deal negating all sin

which my badly glued heart 

cannot fathom.

Without compassion,

and new emptiness,

the creations of youth are gone.

The child of my music can’t return

though it must,

with my heart in hand;

ears set against the buzz

of the fens of mediocrity,

stubbornly punting

across the Styx of my tears

to shores 

of transcendent change.

Glencoe, Western Highlands

Introspection

Solitude, music, writing, art, reason, and nature are joys which are undervalued by the unwise.  These virtues and pleasures of the intellect do not inflict upon me the insufferable patriarchy of civilization, with the worthless proving ground of its roles, its idiotic superstitions, its power plays, and its inevitable soul-killing violence. 

Every time I lie alone with a heart and a body aching for the short-lived pleasures of love, I remember the price I had to pay for it as a woman, and when my reason returns, am glad for the hours upon hours of pleasure I derive from interests and hobbies that only I, exclusively, am present to judge.  When I lie upon my favorite chair in hours of contemplation, nobody judges me, and when I sing off-key, nobody judges me; when I choose to compose lines of poetry which are ridiculous, nobody is there to scoff, and when I draw silly things, only the paper knows how deliciously I have wasted my time. 

The one and only redemption of all that suffering I carry with me is a beautiful child I can raise to be her own woman, and if there is anything on this earth that can redeem the burden, judgment, and secondary motives of men, that would be a child whose presence and spirit are a joy.

As for all other suffering, I drop that burden with more willingness than the worst and most selfish woman you can imagine.  No man is worth sacrifice, and nobody will dare to require me to prove myself ever again.  It is a profound waste of time far better spent on meaningless joys and creative pleasures that madden the halls of power and their worshipful followers.  If any man steps within my boundaries to extricate a pound of flesh and to tax my happiness again for his own sake, he will find his hook slung into a pond of leeches and serpents, and his fate upon crawling out and unwisely pressing the matter will be of his own making.  Now, it is not about what I can give, but what I can be given.  Since I do not have a face that can launch the war of Troy, or a shower of gifts and infinite expressions of generosity, I am accepting of my solitude as a permanent situation.

With the perspective of age and observation, I find that solitude is a greater pleasure than any desire for inclusion, for all inclusion brings me into a game, and I have no time for games when I could be creating worlds of beauty in my joyously idle mind.  

I could be asked why I have not spent time in better service to humanity, but I ask humanity, what better way to show the world that none of us are obligated to be anything other than happy.  This example is my service to humanity, and I am satisfied with it.  

Poem: The Derry Cat Lady

Waterside cat lady don't give a shit.  She says what she wants.

Derry Cat Lady

by A. Carter

Fuck sake, piss off! yees wains and brats,
I'd ruller hauve me fickle cats.
Though furry and a mingin’ lot,
they love me, tho I'm auld and fat.

Hairy Gerry and big orange Bill
to-geller lap me kitchen swill,
and peaceful like, they're gnawin' bones,
but here's you wee shites a-throwin' stones.

And if I get my hands on you,
I'll teach a hard learned thing or two,
wi’ the Waterside witch's curse
of Ulster's Red Hand on your arse.

The boy who hurts a living thing
pays dear to wear the Devil's ring,
and does his work with idle hands
on guns and in the marching bands.

So quick! before you sell your soul,
a cretin bored and on the dole,
show kindness tae a simple cat,
and give his small wee head a pat,

lest ye be forever 

a fuckin twat.

Outhere Music on SoundCloud

I have had the pleasure of discovering an early music label out of Brussels called Outhere music, and they currently have a massive discography sampler on SoundCloud that is an absolute pleasure.

As much as I love the recordings of the Dowland Consort and the incredible sounds of the Early Music Consort founded by David Munrow in London, continental recordings of early music from France and Italy utterly captivate me as well.  This selection of music will keep me happy as a writer for a considerable period of time, so I'll share it here as well.  The label's genres vary from early medieval, to renaissance, to baroque, to romantic, and even a little jazz, concentrating mostly on baroque and Italian Renaissance.

Poem: The Smell of Ireland

Con Durham, a man full of talent, gentleness and love.

I met and played trad music with him in Daingean ui Chuis.

RIP, angel of music.

The Smell of Ireland

by A.R. Carter

When I first landed there, I noticed the smell;

an odd acrid tang, not unpleasant at all.

New to that place I wondered about it,

and after years couldn’t recall

what life’s like without it.

It’s turf-grates and oak,

Bord na Mona’s thick smoke,

vinegar, sausage and chips.

Dettol and paint, and on feet of a saint

beeswax sweet, and the spice of incense.

The harbour’s rotten hemp rope,

and the lavender soap

on old ladies sitting at mass.

The cough of the bus

with a tourist-full truss

wearing too much cologne

as they pass.

St. James’s Gate stinks of burnt barley malt

with relief found in Howth and its air full of salt.

Botanical treasures await in Glasnevin,

the breath of woodbine heaves its own special heaven.

Steaming tarmac, gooey and black,

is mixed in with cow-pats and green.

Mussels in sand, and the smell of a land

of stone walls and fresh Carraghín.

Silage and stink on February dirt,

blackberries rotten on vines;

bacon and eggs with rich soda bread,

the deep quiet stands of white pines.

Black tar on canvas of curraghs tied down,

the trawlers’ old engine oil,

damp woolen jumpers of men worked to the bone

that smell of tobacco and toil.

The smell of a nation, the dirt-smell of spud,

crimped on the coastline by seaweed and mud.

I didn’t hear jays or the mockingbird’s song,

and when all was right, a piece was still wrong.

Nights caught me off as I gazed on the thickets.

They were velvety deep, with no chirping of crickets.

I imagined them all, and then I recalled,

wood stoves on a morning’s cold hickory pall,

fried country ham on the first day of autumn,

cinnamon, walnut, molasses and pumpkin,

sumac and honeysuckle on a deep summer evening,

cornbread, and Lysol, and homemade fried chicken.

Mom’s cotton quilts kept in old cedar chests,

the whirr of cicadas, the razzing of locusts,

and peeking through snow,

the first purple spring crocus.

Then I remembered what I loved about home.

So I’d think of Nashville,

and pick up the phone.

New Poem- Johnny Blue

This is a poem about the Southerners in the US Civil War like the Tennessee regiments who fought on the Union side, of whom were many, and their ranks were silent by necessity but many in number.  

Johnny Blue

The men in gray embrace their lies,

The Union army holds what’s true,

but beware the most the unknown prize

fought for by Johnny men in blue.

They hold most dear a precious fight

oppressed in silence through and through,

and keep thus hid ferocious light

fought for by Johnny men in blue.

Around them they see every day

rags and slavery’s suffering true,

thus propaganda’s feet of clay

are smashed to bits by Johnny Blue.

His eyes are fire, his nostrils flare,

to lay six deep the gray mens’ crew,

of all good fighting men, he’ll dare

not to aim high, brave Johnny Blue.

Accuse the South of rebel heart

no quarter given through and through,

but rebels in their ranks are smart,

cutthroats at night, dark Johnny Blue.

When blue boys are on the north train

avert your eyes, they’ll stare you through;

the Grays have God, we have Mark Twain,

Hell’s flames won’t touch good Johnny Blue.