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B LEEDING
    Sliabh Aughty, my own mountain mine,
    Rhododendroned ridge ever there for me;
    Fields ascending higher as I go
    From Ballylee to Loughrea’s lake:
    To look beyond at County Clare
    Or to gaze at Galway Bay.
    Beyond the vision of the valley
    Is a village hard to find,
    But now it’s known the world over
    Since the bog has moved in Derrybrien.
    Forests, farms, furze and heather-
    Colour palette in the sun:
    Who’ll protect them from the landslide
    Slipping down the river run?
    Noble men of Tobar Pheadair,
    Castleboy and old Kilchreest
    Won’t you worry for your brothers
    Who are threatened by the beast
    Now let loose on this landscape
    Far beyond the mountain top?
    Have you seen Abhainn dá Loilioch?
    Floating Christmas trees and peat
    Slowly slithering towards Lough Cutra,
    Killing brown trout in the squeeze,
    Ruining roadways and the bridge.
    Up in the pub that’s warm and snug
    There’s talk and tension in the air:
    They’re telling tales of a fearsome gorge-
    Up a thousand feet from there.
    All the experts are left thinking
    For they’ve failed to fight the flow:
    All their barriers were upended
    With a muffled mountain roar.
    In Derrybrien they’re not fearing
    What’s gone down but what’s to come -
    Maybe further bigger landslides!
    For God’s sake what’s to be done?
    Bring them help,
    We fought for freedom-
    ’Tis their land, their place, their lives!
    It’s not just a piece of mountain -
    Don’t be fooled, it’s far more grand;
    Those who are up there isolated
    Are the very salt of our native land.
    When Pádraig Pearse was writing poetry
    ’Twas not of Golden Vales he wrote
    But of the little towns of Connacht,
    Of mountain fields that men have sown.
    At the weekend Fleadh of Cooley-Collins
    I watched a lively woman dance
    In sean nós style and quiet abandon
    On an afternoon in Peterswell;
    While at the bar there played a fiddler,
    With hat of tweed and stoic face,
    His bowing was so soft and gentle
    In deep respect to this great place.
    Just one word about the mountain
    That I grew beside secure,
    Thinking mountains were forever-
    They were there aloft alone;
    But having been to Costa Blanca,
    In a town called Guardamar,
    There I saw the bulls tormented
    In the ring to loud acclaim;
    Such noble, haughty, well built creatures
    Sent to death by lance and spear;
    There they lost their way so blindly
    And the blood flowed down their shanks.
    Now it’s nature’s turn to suffer
    As the bog slides o’er its floor-
    Like the toros proud it’s blameless,
    All the shame is ours alone.
    Let Spanish bulls on prados prance,
    Far away from the mob’s olés,
    To be there to see in all their beauty
    Like the backdrop of these hills.
    ’Twas not a bull but the Celtic Tiger
    Changed your serene mountain stance:
    What you’ll see is masts and turbines
    Every time you upwards glance.
    Throw up your head and horns on high,
    You wild and fearsome toro,
    While the river of mud, the mountain’s blood,
    Flows from the land of Lough Atorick.

B ONO AND B OB
    Bono and Bob in Live Eight in Hyde Park:
    Our boys are doing the business;
    Heroes of rock and heralds of hope
    Across the broad bands of the media.
    African famine could soon be just history
    For the Global Eight are dropping their debt
    In the hope of an end to all the corruption.
    In the far fields of Africa drums will beat
    At the news from our Bob and our Bono;
    They’ll walk with a happier step in the heat
    While their war is won simply with music.

C ANNED
    You can-
    I’ll be damned
    But
    Tonight
    I need
    To hold
    One of you
    In my hand.
    You can-
    You are
    My only man.
    You can-
    You w on’t
    And I can’t
    Be on our own.
    I’ll have another
    And you there
    Don’t tell
    My mother!
    You can-
    Now I can’t
    Stand.
    Too many
    Cans-
    Going to land!
    My fellowman
    I’m canned.
    I’ll soon be
    Ignominiously
    Banned.

D EADLINES
    The piano man plays on
    And the tenors thrill
    On the screen this Christmas;
    Soon at dawn, it’s said,
    Saddam