Poetry by Joey Connolly
Beyond chocolate, roses, and insipid messages on cards is the wonderful world of poetry
about love. Poets around the world incorporate a myriad of love themes in their work.
Love that is lost and found, love of family, food, fun; romantic, sexual, and platonic love.
Here are three verses from a 12 verse poem by Padraigin Haicead (1600 – 1654) a
Dominican priest from Cashel Co. Tipperary, Ireland. His own Dominican order prohibited
him from returning to Ireland for “writing a polemical account of the events of the 1640s
there.” The poem is translated from Gaelic, his native tongue. It reflects love for his country.
I Send A Love Token To A Companion (verses 1, 4, and 10)
I send a love token to a companion, I have
Poured my heart’s love out for her; poor,
Battle-scarred Ireland of the fair sward,
the Emerald field — beautiful is she.
(a sward is a grass covered area or field)
I have not come upon throughout my
Travels, any other country like the land of
Niall, the pure, variegated, well-watered hill
The sun soaked far ranging, gentle plain.
I renounce all the lands of Europe except
You O fair patrimony of Conn of the battles,
O chief of fairy mounds, o land of
Generosity, O road of kings most propitious.
Two sonnets by me on love lost and found:
WHY SHOULD I GRIEVE
Why should I grieve and sing sad song blues
If love brings grief regardless of what I choose
In all compass directions wherever wind blows
We had hot torrid summers and then she froze
He snatched her right from underneath my nose
Took my beauty and left me without any relief
Love’s thorn pricks and blood flows from its rose
Must my love simply acquiesce to that love thief
Lover come back to me, I will not fret or frown
About these past events or some of our mistakes
Your touch and kisses stop me from feeling down
With love’s light from heaven above we’ll partake
So why should I grieve and always seem to lose
When love’s perspective stands inside your shoes.
“Nothing endures, not even love/ Though the warm heart
purrs of the length thereof / Nirvana gapes for all things given;
Nothing escapes, Love not even.” — Countee Cullen(1903-1946)
NOTHING ENDURES – LOVE DISPROVES
(on a lifelong tour for sure)
In appreciating life’s beauty understanding of love grows
as we all grow upwards and onwards towards a full moon
then fades in time as we grow older in body and brain
as the monthly cycles of every moon wax and wane.
Let it rip, go for it, go for the gusto, catch it while you can
Let blood rush blush and bloom inside life’s living room
Let it flourish nourish and flower before comes your doom
Let it flow back and forth the sum of your corpus callosum.
Eventually time and torrid tides will recede as love’s cycles
revolve and slowly evolve towards our final dissolve
Then eternal darkness for eggs and sperm with the worms
as this sad, funny and little old lovely world slowly turns.
‘Time and tide wait for no man’ disproves ‘nothing endures’
because time and tides of loving take us on lifelong tours.
Joey “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.
