Harbour Street, Tullamore

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Harbour Street, Tullamore

There are Sunday afternoon shoppers where another
time ago the silence of religious observation
hung penitentially, or, on occasion, a club

match in O’Connor Park might see a procession of men,
cigarettes in hand, nervously anticipating
county glory. I smell petrol fumes now, but also there,

in the air, unexpectedly, the smell of animal
piss, that clean sharp tang must have seeped into
these stones and cement grooved paths, released

now to stagger memory into life: calves slipping
and slithering down green urine sloped trailers;
pigs, pink and manure slathered, squealing in riotous

protest as farmers, nicotine fingered, Wellingtons
stuffed with stained dungarees or shiny brown corduroys,
turn and twist them into display. Smell has tricked me

into hearing my Grandmother, sending me to
Wrafters for a pound and a half of back rashers,
“and make sure he gives you Tullamore sausages”.

He still stands there behind the counter, flour dust
in his hair, slicing bacon; the smell of stale Guinness
lingering from behind the yellow glass frosted door.

“You, too will be a memory like me, young fella.”
He wraps the sausages in grease paper, “Others will
remember you for the ordinary ould things.”

[~greg]

i dont understand the last line ("Others ..." ...)
but other than that, two thumbs up!

it's great!

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Thank you, Greg

"Others" = those who will come after me; the next generation; those who know me now, and will have memories of me when I pass on...

Jimmy

[~greg]

Yeah, but you've got these things,
- smells in particular, - bringing back memories
( it's called the Proust mechanism
--- and I actually read Remembrance of Things Past!!!)

Lines like "into hearing my Grandmother, sending me..."
and "young fella"
- means that you're remembering these things,

And so then
"you too will be a memory like me, young fella"
-- is very powerful,

You are remembering somebody telling you
that you will become a memory (to somebody)
just like he will become to you,

Which is down right eerie!
Like the movie The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

So I don't see what value adding the line
“Others will remember you for the ordinary ould things.”
adds to it. It seems to me it detracts.

On the other hand, I don't know if you should end it
abruptly with "He wraps the sausages in grease paper."

That would be like e.e.cumming's
"next to of course god america i"
which ends with the isolated line:
"He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water".

just my 2c

[Jimmy O'Connell]

The last three lines are the key...

"He", the shopkeeper/Mr Wrafter, has become a ghost.... a memory for me.... I too, will become a ghost, a memory to/for others... and I won't be remembered for anything special, or extraordinary, (who does, except celebrities!!!!)... but "for the ordinary ould things".

That's all there is..... the ordinary old things....

Jimmy

[MFL]

Maybe it's an Irish thing Jimmy, I loved it,

I thought for a moment and then,

One neighbour leaning on an old gate, waving a stick as we pass. His way of saying hello.

The local shopkeeper.She always wore her hair in a bun, one day she rushed into the shop her hair was down, waist length, I remember thinking it was beautiful. The one and only time I ever saw it like that.

The smile of the lady in the Ice-cream shop.

These are childhood memories; these people are long gone but remembered today for the ordinary ould things

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Thanks MFL

I think or hope it's more than an Irish thing.. i believe it's universal...

Jimmy

[~greg]

"He", the shopkeeper/Mr Wrafter, has become a ghost.... a memory for me....
I too, will become a ghost, a memory to/for others...
and I won't be remembered for anything special, or extraordinary,
(who does, except celebrities!!!!)... but "for the ordinary ould things".
That's all there is..... the ordinary old things....

Jimmy,
you don't seem to take criticism too badly.
Which may simply mean that you don't take it at all.
But in any case, since I honestly think this is a good poem,
and since I am even more convinced now than before
that the last line ruins it, I'll speak frankly.

So, what you're saying about that last line
is that it was an expression of self-pity.
A mangled stoic cliche, tacked on to the end
of your poem in order to make your poem
come to some kind of gratuitous moral point.

Much the same as I tacked on
"There are children in China that need 'em more than you"
to the end of my last, so called "poem". Which I rationalized,
rather well I think, if I do say so myself. Nevertheless, it was
a fault there. And it's a fault here too.

It may be your personal attitude that people who work
around the docks are inferior to "celebrities". But there
is nothing in your poem that suggests that, or leads up to it.
In fact, anyone who has read a lot of Whitman would have thought,
from the tone of the majority of your poem, that it was rather after
his style of celebration of ordinary people, -- not "celebrities".

In fact, in your poem, you actually do remember,
and even name somebody -- Mr Wrafters --who was,
presumably, an ordinary person, ---whereas you do not
mention or remember or name one single 'celebrity'!
Which makes the majority of your poem an explicit contradiction
to what you say your last line is supposed to mean.

~~~

Many languages distinguish between two kinds of "knowing".

In Italian, "sapere" means to know by mind,
as we know a fact, or how to do something.
Which is the way we "know" celebrities.
Insubstantially. Artificially. Or, "not really."

"Conoscere", on the other hand, means to know by heart,
as we know a friend, or personal memory. "Really."

The thing is, the majority of your poem is about conoscere.
Whereas the last line, as you've explained it, is about sapere.
And that sudden switch I found jarring.

I happen to think that the point you're making is an illusion about life.
But in any case, you don't prepared for it in the poem, and it is not
a natural leap to make in the context.

~~~
(As for the relative duration between the memory
of ordinary people, vs celebrities --- any conclusion
about that is pure nonsense. Ordinary last names
can last for thousands of years, and ordinary genes
can last for billions of years. Whereas most celebrity
names disappear in a few years, or months, or in 15
minutes. And the ones that have lasted longer
have become completely disassociated from any
real person who ever lived. You know the problems
in seeking "the historical Jesus". But try to seek
someone even much more recent, "the historical
William Tell" say, and you're not going to get anywhere.)

[Jimmy O'Connell]

“You, too will be a memory like me, young fella.”
He wraps the sausages in grease paper, “Others will
remember you for the ordinary ould things.”

So, what you're saying about that last line
is that it was an expression of self-pity.
A mangled stoic cliche, tacked on to the end
of your poem in order to make your poem
come to some kind of gratuitous moral point.

You may have a point here, Greg.... But I think you may misunderstand my intention. My comment about "celebrities" was meant to be ironic, or sardonic, or sarcastic, and/or all the above...
It is precisely the ordinary old things that most of us on this planet will be remembered, by other ordinary people. This is not something to be full of self pity, rather it is the Truth, a Reality, which I celebrate.

You might be right about the last line being a bit redundant, but there is no self-pity in it.
I leave it in for the moment because I am being true to the "voice" of Mr Wrafter, who probably would say something like that, in this manner, if he had realised what I am, now, realising, that the "ordinary ould things", are what Beauty and Truth is, essentially.

Thanks again for the crit... I will let it seep and see if it festers!!!

Jimmy