Ross Bradshaw
Learning Irish
I’m not sure what led me to be here
In the middle of a dance floor
Round a table set for nine.
Instead of plates
We have simple sentences, childish cartoons,
Difficult words to get our tongues round.
There are no letters for “x” and “z” in this alphabet.
I want to ask: How do you mark the spot
Where treasure can be found? What do bees do?
Downstairs the big fishing club
Is hard at it. Today is Wednesday.
For me it was always politics, politics.
And all those names…
Paisley and Stone, Sands and Tone,
The rhyme of a playground game.
But working now at this keyboard,
I can only be positive.
There’s something about the accent over the letter “i”
That stops me translating “not”.
And I can be many things I perhaps was once,
Perhaps could become.
For now living only in the present:
Is gasúr mé
Tá mé óg
Is athair mé
Tá mé mór
Tá mé an-go maith
I am a boy
I am young
I am a father
I am big
I am very well
In the middle of a dance floor
Round a table set for nine.
Instead of plates
We have simple sentences, childish cartoons,
Difficult words to get our tongues round.
There are no letters for “x” and “z” in this alphabet.
I want to ask: How do you mark the spot
Where treasure can be found? What do bees do?
Downstairs the big fishing club
Is hard at it. Today is Wednesday.
For me it was always politics, politics.
And all those names…
Paisley and Stone, Sands and Tone,
The rhyme of a playground game.
But working now at this keyboard,
I can only be positive.
There’s something about the accent over the letter “i”
That stops me translating “not”.
And I can be many things I perhaps was once,
Perhaps could become.
For now living only in the present:
Is gasúr mé
Tá mé óg
Is athair mé
Tá mé mór
Tá mé an-go maith
I am a boy
I am young
I am a father
I am big
I am very well
Page(s) 11
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The