Micropoetry #1

June#1

little beetle cars crawling
far down below  
the glint of sunlight  
on their eyes  
betraying them..




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by Des Donnelly

An Trump Bizarre

and the saws
and the bucks
and the leps of them
was a joy to behold
hope for the old Ireland yet
no matter about the press gobshites in Dublin
sure what would they know anyway
they're so long conquered
fáilte go dtí Dónal Mór 
..trump that yous feckers.. ;-)


 




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by Des Donnelly

Ireland’s Engagement with the Diaspora - Suggestions

Review of Ireland’s Engagement with the Diaspora

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently completed a review of Diaspora policy to examine all elements of engagement with the Irish abroad.

The Department invited those at home and abroad who are interested in and affected by issues of emigration, and the wider questions of engagement with the Diaspora, to contribute their views to the review.

Please find below my Submission to the Irish Abroad Unit, Department of Foreign Affairs

Introduction

Leaving Ireland you lose something of yourself, perhaps it is the deep sadness experienced in that parting with your people, your land, your own place. Often this is only felt in those intense moments of alone, out amongst strangers who sometimes have very little regard for their own people; never mind us, the immigrant.

As a person who left Ireland for the first time in 1977 I still remember this sense of loss acutely.

As a father with both daughters in Australia I am not alone in feeling a sense of frustration at the ever increasing ineptitude of the political class. In my own view they are now at the terminus of their gravy train and it it past time to get off.

This consultation by the Department is most welcome and I believe that all of us can serve our family, friends and relations abroad best by engaging positively with Government North and South.  There is consensus that there is an urgent need for policy modification and new policy introduction.

It is imperative that the Governments and Departments act decisively. 

Action / Suggestion Points

There will most likely be a degree of repetition in comments / ideas put forward, nonetheless I would like to make the following suggestions;-

1. Create a dedicated Minister / and Department for the Diaspora

Comment: it is not about squeezing a few Euro out of a few people being dragged back to Ireland reluctantly. It is about recognising that the cultural, artistic and spiritual psyche of the island lies in our engagement with and appreciation of those outside Ireland. The Diaspora are as much a part of Ireland as those of us who remain behind.

2. Create the post of Diaspora attaché, in sufficient numbers and deployed this year in geographic areas that reflect the distribution of the global Irish as indicated in Appendix 1.

Comment: the post of Diaspora Attaché could be created more or less immediately within DFA. These Diaspora Attachés would effectively become the cadre of the new Department of the Diaspora.

3. Produce a definitive / official analysis of the global distribution of the Diaspora to provide for detailed academic research and to guide ongoing policy decisions.

4. Produce real time quarterly data on emigrants

5. Create a number of Action Teams focusing on emigrants of differing periods, for example;-

Action Team A: those who have left in the last 5/10 years

Action Team B: those who have left in the last 10/20 years

Action Team C: those who have left in the last 20/40 years

Action Team D: those who have left in the last 40/60 years

Action Team E: those who have left in the last 60/100 years

Action Team F: those who have left in the last 100+ years

Each team’s responsibility would be engagement with the Diaspora of the period in the most appropriate manner.

6. Create Action Teams split by age segmentation. The objective being to develop ‘help/intervention cases’ from the characteristics of emigrants by age distribution. For example this may well be served best by using the mediums of sport, music, art, literature, language as common bonds that remain long past the date of leaving.

7. Create a global award system for those proactively participating in Diaspora entities worldwide to the betterment of their fellow emigrant and the global Irish. As an example these could be named 'The Boru Awards' and would essentially be our global cultural celebration of all things Irish.

8. Allow the Irish abroad to vote on the simple premise if you hold a current Irish passport you are eligible to vote.

Comment: the length of time it is taking to resolve this issue and indeed the whole manner of treating those who have left as no longer being of Ireland is a disgrace and needs changed immediately.

9. Use real world technology to achieve improved contact and collaboration with and among the Diaspora.

Comment: a cursory look at the use figures for Gmail, Google Apps for Business, G+, Facebook, Paypal, EBay, Twitter, Pinterest will show that each of these companies deal with billions of pieces of data daily. 

NOTE: It would be crucial that any of the crowd involved in the electronic voting debacle are not allowed near this.

10. Create an annual ‘Ideas for Ireland Competition’ operated at club, school, college, university and open levels to garner ideas from our entire tribe worldwide.

Conclusion

My own personal experience having worked and travelled all over the world is that my fellow Irish are always there with a helping hand - but you have to be able to find them and ask nicely.

One of the most encouraging things about technology is the ease of communication that it brings.  We can now find them.!

Looking at this on a wider front Google or Facebook or Twitter could set up a Irish community for 5 or 6 million in the while of an afternoon and add the other 60 odd million the next day.

We could all vote on everything by teatime, plus we could post photos of each of us at our tea. We could share our own detailed analysis with friends on our mobile, ipad, Chromebook, tv or even our ‘Glasses’.

There is no longer any technological impediment to real time data, real time voting or opinion seeking and global connectivity with many millions of the Diaspora.

What remains is the political will and foresight.

Des Donnelly,
Co Tyrone.

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Ps: I am happy to engage in dialogue with anyone on this subject and to elaborate on any of the suggestions made here, the contact form here would be the ideal way to do.

Appendix 1 – the Global Irish

  

Poem - The Eluvium Bar

I walked into the Eluvium Bar
a cheer went up 
the aliens recognising the dig as an art form
I definitely made an impression last night
“pity the pithy poet” roared Zmurofska, one of the actor bouncers
“beat it” I shouted back
the stalky people in the corner fell over laughing
and the free drink began to flow
she was there too, her mad red eyes glancing towards me
I blew her a kiss for badness to get the row going
watching the ripple effect in frowns circling out
how big a pebble I wondered
almost ducking in response to the hate wave reflected back
from all the admirers
her red eyes were something else
all the tall dark brunettes in my life fading with every parsec
I edged up to the bar, no elbows, trying to be mannerly 
as well as polite to the bartender with 4 arms and 2 mean rights
jesus it started to make some sort of sense, the engines were volcanic
so much for ‘the final frontier’ we were at it, on it and in it
I could feel the chaos sliding towards me, the ESP shots starting to work
the triangular candle trying to tilt enough to light the long fuse
the bar counter aiding and abetting by leaning back into the roll, 
catching a few newcomers unawares, 
I tried hard not to laugh but it was too late,
like a dying canary warming up, puffing up 
humming its own song of doom
the gravity made the fights relatively harmless
tell that to my black eye
‘you need to learn karate’
the whisper from grandfather on old earth
a truism valid 
for any galaxy


This is a little poem that was submitted to an excellent and really most imaginative competition;- Ó Bhéal Five Words International Poetry Competition - congratulations to the winner Don Nixon. 

The deal - they gave you 5 words and you had to make a poem, the five words for this poem were;-

• eluvium 
• red
• pithy 
• volcanic
• candle 

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by Des Donnelly

Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013)

It is with great sorrow and sadness that I report the death of Seamus Heaney in Dublin. I offer my condolences to his wife Marie, and children, Christopher, Michael and Catherine Ann.

Seamus Justin Heaney, 13 April 1939 to 30 August 2013.  R.I.P.

--

"The spot is hallow'd where the good man dwells;

Though centuries have laps’d, his words and deeds 

for his remotest offspring still resound”  Goethe

--
Seamus Heaney was the ultimate poet to me; in his work, his life, his manner, his openness and accessibility. I thought of him as a friendly statue, solid, smiling as I resisted the urge to bow down in his presence. Meeting him at readings down the years he was always the same, I remember meeting him at a reading in Clogher, Co Tyrone, I had just pulled up when he drove in beside me & got out, we talked a while & taking a jacket from the car he said;

 “I may put on the working clothes”

--

Des Donnelly, Poet, Co Tyrone.

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Poem - If I

if I was a bird
you are the colour on my wings
if I was a fish 
you are the rainbow on my back
if I was the land
you are the flower growing in me
if I was a star
you are the light shining from me
if I was a song
you are my music
if I was that boy
you are my girl
if
if only 
if only

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by Des Donnelly   ..written 2.Dec.2004

1 million views of my writing on Hubpages

A few years back (probably a right few now) I reached the milestone of 1 million views of my writing on Hubpages under my pseudonym Drax. I would like to thank all my readers, friends and fans for their support in the Hubpages era. I am indebted to Paul Edmondson, former CEO of Hubpages and all his staff.

I do not have any poetry publicly viewable on the site anymore and I am in the process of moving that material to here.

Poem - The Bi-Polar Owl

The Bi-Polar Owl

the bi polar owl was in a bad mood,
the mice scrambled for cover.
To die was simply destiny,
but the mood brought sado machostic practices,
even the dead would not talk about.
The terror among the field mice palatable,
leading to mass migrations,
many moving to the town.
Scurrying in the shadows oblivious to the cat gauntlet,
the bliss of sudden death welcome.
Then just the shudder of memory,
the full moon in a wide field,
the silent swoop of the owl.
Life over in that moment,
the rush of adrenaline, the high,
scrambling for purchase to escape the shadow black,
faster, faster, faster,
and then...

Hollie McNish - Mathematics || Spoken Word by @holliepoetry

Mega talented poet (IMHO)
Hollie McNish



https://twitter.com/holliepoetry
http://holliepoetry.com/

Poem - The Dining

The Marquess’s Marchioness ascended the stairs
the dining room perched in the high tower
I struggled from step to step
perfectly placed to admire her gastrocnemius
and semimembranosus and of course her biceps femoris
then my knowledge of musculature nomenclature deserted me
I was tempted to fall back on a somewhat chauvinist compliment
but the mood of the house was against it..
this particular night
then turning the last square corner
the dining room stole my imagination
a trick of perspective or reality
the long table stretched away like a serpent’s slither
a marble plinth with a motif of writhing waifs
thirteen black candelabra dripping blood wax on their skin
my mind was almost silenced
my heart ticking to the dripping
my life entwined with the waifs’ pain and pleasure