15 Jan 2006 @ 18:34
Geraldine Reid is from Belfast. I have not seen her for over 20 years. She is a born Poet. Was a passionate lover and a most caring human woman. When I moved into a new house. I had no money, no furniture or carpets. Little food, No cigarettes and a very bad case of flu. I had one blanket and one cushion. But fortunately! District Heating, so at least I was warm. After not hearing from me for a week. Geraldine came out from Belast. A distance of twenty miles by bus! Though she could not afford it. She was agast at my state, went out and came back with cigarettes, she knew my priority! She went out again, after she has made me comfortable. Came back with enough food for both of us that evening. A few hours later. There was a hammering on my front door. And then! there were hard looking men and hard women. In and out with shopping and furniture. and soon I was wrapped up in a clean and warm bed. I lay listening to their West Belfast accents. Enjoying their company. Geraldine had telephoned into West Belfast. Into hard country, where you do not walk alone at night, unless you are Republican. These are hard people, condemned outright as having no human side. I know different. These lovely people used their own benefit money, to ensure I was okay. They came into a Prod! area. Dangerous for Tegs! But these are only titles. I do not know their names, have never had chance to say thank you. But if any read this so many years later. I have not forgotten you and your kindness. Thank you.
Kernerwek Prydythe.
Bonding.
(For Geraldine Reid.)
She was quiet in a grouping
The lounge of The Ulster Peoples College,
A lack of division, simple bonding.
Head down into her reading, hardly heard!
Her old green duffel coat, swamping her figure,
Like some frail old, eccentric woman.
But when she looked up!
The green of her eyes, sea depths,
Evaporating in an Irish Sunlight.
We hardly spoke, she and I,
Good evening, or Good night.
Light softening the outlines of a City
An almost! Normal living.
She was as a mouse in a corner
Of her dreams, quiet voicing.
But her words demanded attention,
We all listened and wanted more
And she gave us so much more.
A Public Reading.
(The Crescent Art Centre Belfast)
Among a City's coarse remains
And closed doors grieving,
Beyond the paramilitary gains
And the tranquil seat of learning.
One building wrecked by times decay
The back room, a poor man's theatre.
We crowded out all division,
Entered into an explosion of reading,
And she! Head erect. Slim hip throwing
A tantalising attentive image,
That night she was a Poet of stature
The soul of her was winging,
Above the fire scorch and splinter.
She was force and confidence.
I knew then, that here was a birth gain,
The cells of her vision inherent
In her uncanny use of language.
No-one had given her lesson
But Heaney would have welcomed her
And McQuickian would recognize.
When she left the stage to silence
There was nothing of division,
In the foot stamping uproar
Of her well deserved acclaim.
When I entered light and stage fright!
Unable to stand, sitting the stage edge
In a show of casual unimportance.
To read. "After an Ulster Dance".
For words having been scribed must be read
An epitaph for all our dead.
Against the guns and the bloodied remains.
Each gave me deathly silence,
In their predominate West Belfast listening.
What offence I might have caused,
What threat I might have gained.
Some may have been even closer
To condemation than I knew.
Touched by sudden violent death
The insane motivate of nature,
But such things were forgotten
In Kellys Cellars, quaffing cider
Firing words into a smoke haze
Traditional music injecting a more,
Peaceful Ireland.
We almost had a total conversation,
but for her brain addled by drink.
The secret of her transformation?
Great slugs of Vodka in her Poets veins.
When she laughed into admission,
She was suddenly, more than beautiful.
Leaving the Cellars was a jumble of friendships,
Links in a human pavement chain.
One lonely poet suggesting, I escort her home
On the last lighted Ulsterbus.
was a subtle human asking,
But Geraldine reid!
Good God woman! Had you no shame?
Your hand linking into my arm.
Blood pounding in your well diluted veins.
And your powerful voice claiming.
"You can't have him Eileen, he's mine!"
When I looked down, her face was hidden
Shadows of a Belfast street
Silence washing the last rain shower.
No gunmen in our vision
Such moments of peace never lasting.
There was nothing else to do!
But fill my vast Castle room
With her poetic curiousity.
Into every ancient corner
All the nooks and crannies
Of a Poets quiet single life,
Until she claimed space in my bed.
Nothing of this or that
Into a warm and different sleep,
Into morning! Waking into her wrap,
Of arms. legs, belly to the far wall.
We knew then that love was between
The Clock Tower and the courtyard.
We lay listening to the Peacocks
Cracking out the final stages of a night.
When she discovered my skin
Poetry became an instinctive happening.
What is written by the honest pen
Remains within those Antrim Castle walls,
Their mighty set of stones
A monument to all our poets loving.
She shook all the dust, from each page
Thumbed into night array
Of wanting poets dreaming.
Traced the the bark scars
Visualising reason out of chaos.
Kenerwek Prydthe. 23rd August. 1991.
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