James O'Hara,
ireland
  

 

 

 

 

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James Desmond O'Hara grew up in Ireland, moved around extensively in the hotel business in the United States
and now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, while operating a buiness for a Northern Pueblo. He strongly believes in
the bardic tradition and that poets have an obligation to pronounce on critical, social and humanitarian conditions
around the world. He is at this time seeking material support to research and record more aspects of the journey
to the divine.

 

AMHRA MISE RAIFTEIRI AN FILE 1784-1835
TRIBUTE TO I AM RAFTERY THE BARD 1784-1835

I died on a pouring Christmas night

On Saint Stephen’s day
two moulded candles provided light
to the grave diggers
who encountered large stones

The good wind on that night
could not move the flames

I had been made blind at five
smallpox released upon me
leaving the remnant of weeping eyes

I lived by my wits
hundreds of compositions in my head
often times my back to the wall
eyes without light
singing my own songs
playing to empty pockets

In later years
I was bent in the middle from carrying my bag
and enduring at every cost
my hair was always black
like Kilkenny coal

In my word studies
I recollect a menagerie
with golden monkeys from Macau
at Temple House
Sir Charles had prospered in mandarin trade

Two tribes were given the same labor
each day one was rewarded with apples
the other was rewarded with turnips
soon this second group refused
to have anything to do with work

In my mind I hear the recordings from a future time
and the world’s priests
tremulant in their voice
seeming to have palpable anger

My work is memory and prophesy
summoning arousal and discordance
filling the ledger books of a pressed people

I am on a road now by Killeadan
listening to the faeries in unison
reciting the names of days
they can not remember De Ceadain (Wednesday)

The good people are grateful that I have broken
the spell
and are organizing a party for three days

I will play my fiddle
and whisper softly to beautiful women

The faeries have offered me any gift

I have asked for the steel of poetry

To fight every battle
 
MELODIES OF FLUTES

The evangelists roam the dry expanse
in melodies of flutes agaves speak
to the open spaces and the superstition mountains
In lilac splendor
Inca doves and native plants shimmer
the simple sky is glory
with vapor trails from passing jets

In honeybee canyons
companions choose the steps
through tumbled boulders edged by wind
Telltale rattles, flexing waves of scales
making contact with the ground and turquoise jewels
Spiders spinning silken sheets
on which to place their eggs

Pleated prickly cisterns
clothed in corollas born
waterfed from cloudburst chocolate streambeds
wandlike stems with bright magenta fruit
brittlebush and perfume greasewood
sweeps of blended colors in an eastern rug
Impressive stillness

Inch by inch on burnt medallion pavement
lizards sound asleep in clefts
sunlight falling in a blazing heat
In pursuit of tiny prism birds
with pollen on their heads
searching for a basin pool with hyacinths
Greens on the bottom, blues on top