ManicDDaily

Supposed to be Irish Soda Breads

At Joyce’s Tower, Dublin; Happening Onto a Robust Woman
Who’d Just Bathed In the Sea

Irish soda bread for real
lined shelves at shops’ rush hour;
clothes, that she had shed or peeled,
buffed feet, Martello Tower.

Pink her cheeks as plum blossom;
dimpled her skin about the midst.
Ah….  Ah… (her fulsome bosom)–
to call it else would be remiss.

‘Twas–did I forget to say?
Winter–even sun was damp,
gave us not a lot of day.
She, she shone, her own dugs lamps–

Whiteness shimmering shimmied
by a hand towel that she rubbed
staunch (like that ringing hymn we’d
sung when “Onward” sounded scrubbed

and squeaky clean), her panties
stretching wide like grin-full face,
hair wet in sea-curled shanties,
thick bare legs a true soul place

beyond Joyce, at least, for me,
that day, that year, that winter,
when what had been a history
of whole slipped into splinter.

How I got there? Roundabout.
From up to down, high to low.
Though by that sea, brown as stout,
somehow footing firmed below.

Failure, that had tolled my doom,
seemed instead part of life’s flow,
which would make a bold try room,
allow hope oar along strife’s row.

At my side, a waxen pouch,
fingered crumbs that shed or peeled–
caraway, raisins (yes, and such)–
Irish soda bread for real.

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The above is supposed to be a poem drafted in Celtic Quatrains in response to a challenge from Kerry at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.  I don’t think it’s so successful, but it was great fun to try.   Thanks also to Hedgewitch (Joy Ann Jones) who wrote a great one and encouraged me to try.

At any rate, this form, the Celtic Quatrain, is supposed to have interlocking rhymes – with triple rhymes  (i.e. three syllables) in the first and third lines; and double rhymes in the second and fourth.  Also, there are supposed to be seven syllables a line.  I tried to stay true to the rhyme scheme (more or less( but found the syllabic limit very difficult and I’m not sure that enjambment is allowed!  At any rate, try one yourself!   To learn more, check out Kerry’s informative post.