Of Ireland

Sea Bird

The bird swept through surf-spray,

Through countries of diaphanous cloud

Cutting the sea mist with curved wing-blades.

Between cumulus she soars and sails -

Now high, lone on the horizon,

Then low, breath skimming white sea crests

Swift as emotion; her flight brief as memory -

Seeking dark eves' warmth in summer storms.

 Anna Warrington '10

In my mind I sat below the cliff face at Classiebawn in Mullaghmore, isolated and at peace. Staring out into the great Atlantic abyss, next stop America, thousands of miles beyond the horizon. That it's my favourite place is immaterial; it's more the homesickness getting to me, it's been a rough time of it here so far in patches, maybe something that my naivety hadn't catered for. Beyond the longing to be back on the island, even the recognition of my previous naivety has triggered learning signs. It's why I'm here. Stagnancy crept in. For every day spent in Mullaghmore at peace, there was at least a month spent irritated as the country was brought to its knees by greed and the eerily paradoxical 'free-market economy'. I learnt a renewed respect for the land of my birth since returning from Wales in 2006, but can't help but feel that respect had never really disappeared, more-so been pushed to one side in pursuit of personal progression. Through various jobs, that progress faltered, routine set in & life became a mundane recurrence. It happened to me, and my influence over it was held back by a part of my brain that didn't want to get too involved, the part that knew that it had regressed to a place it wasn't ready to be back in. For all the natural beauty, the people I love, the dogs that completed me, something itched at the soles of the feet, told me to move on. From the minute I landed back on the island to the minute I got on the plane to Korea, the journey was never in doubt. I needed the inspiration, and despite all the beautiful people I am fortunate enough to know that live there, I needed the distance to appreciate them the more. I am the base prototype for realising what you have when you're 8,000 miles away from it all.

So I sat there, as often before in body, but now in mind's memory. With images more lucid than any camera could capture of the waves crashing against the rocks; the sea foam caught like polystyrene in the gaps of erosion;  the haunting castle looming over the landscape, the sheer face of Ben Bulben keeping a watchful eye as the rhythm held its beat, steady and hypnotic, with the sounds that were left when the drone of humanity is muted and only the soundtrack of the natural world was audible. I watched her 'soar and sail' through the 'countries of diaphanous cloud' and my mind soared too, to a place beyond the limitations of bank loans and the rip-off republic.

I have spoken to many people about what good poetry means to me, and perhaps never managed to capture my true thoughts in a language that makes sense. Partly because my lack of fluency in Irish, the only language that my soul speaks, inhibits me, partly because I probably don't know what good poetry is. I own two books by R.S. Thomas, that cover his entire work and epitomise what strikes me as good about the art form. Whilst hating to throw definitions around, it is religious poetry, though not biblical, but instead an appreciation of man's inherent connection with the world around him. Outside of the ego, the id and the super-ego, or whatever the latest psychologists have dreamt up to categorise man's interaction with his self and others, the universal understanding that everything just is. No more and no less. I have read a lot of work by spoken word artists lately, and whilst I ultimately respect their place as artists and admire what they do, it's been grating me that the line blurs between their art form and the term 'poet'. The sycophantic back-clapping through lines too weak to correct grammar, whose claims (for the majority) to the poetic form are too raw to have yet been humbled by 'The Echoes return slow' or Kavanagh's 'The Great Hunger'. I get uneasy when people refer to me as a poet, knowing as I do the divide that exists between the words I create and the worlds created by those truly deserving of the title. It is with this in mind, along with the so-far eye-opening transition to life in Korea, that I was fortunate enough to be tagged in the poem at the beginning of this post. My ego briefly reared its head to suggest that maybe through such an honour was my path on track, justified by the respect of another's shared talent. A poem I wish I had the talent to write, and through the swift and graceful line transitions, that echoes the beauty of why I came to love the writings of Thomas.

What struck me is that we are all 'high, lone upon the horizon,' when our 'breath' isn't 'skimming white sea crests' of interaction with others. All we have is the truth our own minds create, and ultimately we are alone on our own horizon, as near or as far as we allow that to be. Too often I find people never look for what's beyond that line of vision, afraid that toying with the familiar shall imbalance their pre-conceived reality; searching so hard to find a box to climb into that they have have forgotten that all boxes are only a creation of consensus, and consensus only truly works when the numbers who vote for it are limited to one. I have arrived at an understanding with myself; good poetry is the removal of the poet from the work, words that offer themselves to the reader to take the narrative for the self, to submerge that isolated mind in the scene and have the verse belong to you alone. Too sweeping a statement perhaps, but it's why I've always felt uncomfortable around the egocentricity of 'poetry' gigs. For all the talent that exists within the movement, and it is vast and varied, there always exists the barrier of the performer, whose words whilst shared are never truly given. I don't need to be told, I just need the space to explore my own evolving ideas of truth.

My heart will always be in Ireland, as in time my body will also return. For all her ills there is a purity there in parts that is as yet untamed by subservience to the capitalistic farce. It's little wonder that in my mind's eye I am back there looking west to the ocean rather than east to the debacle that the government have subscribed the people to. I have left to gain perspective, and will return to what Thomas would describe as 'The True Ireland of My Imagination' to seek the 'dark eves' warmth of summer storms'.

Atlantis

Atlantis

At the cliffs of Classiebawn

I have seen you in dreams

Where the arid autumn leaves

leave their trees & drift

beneath the Celtic sun of a

June-dayed October,

Falling on the beach at Mullaghmore,

When last we walked

hand in hand in life.

The ocean was unchanged;

Still feeding on the coarse-rock

coughed up by disquieted time

Drinking from the fountain

of its own immeasurable womb

Breathing as the moon's disciple.

Ours was the island

latent in the lakes

of Plato's paradise

Buried beneath the

hurried highways of

the tiger's tomb.

You left before fate

had a chance to intervene

for the greyer-green

depths of the queen's majesty

In silence, I licked wounds

that wouldn't heal-

Craved the unconscious

Woke with memory's loss

etched in the empty echoes

of a hollow routine

Cried wolf as the

lions closed in for the kill.

I walked fields to feel

the unplundered pasture

of the past

Feigned love for the closed-eyed

surrogacy of your touch

Waited for a day that never came.

I must leave you in those by-gone days

In the sunset's silhouette

of the ocean;

Elegant,

Infinite,

Unchanged.

Deja-vu

Caught by chance of thought, this nothingness became
Of life and limb, a solemn hymn, a silent caste of shame
Whose course would change, and rearrange, would just the self to blame
Pray man was of the mountain, whose focus stayed the same

Who turns around in hindsight, regrets who they've become
Forgets to face tomorrow and the challenges to come
So that they may be righteous, would rise but with the sun
And when the darkness met the eye, accept what's lost or won

While nothing is forever, what's now shall never last
It's difficult to keep the mind from straying to the past
Where questions brought but questions, where answers were too vast
Were they content, of simple minds, who never sought to ask?

The richest man could ever be, could need for nothing more
Would never seek to find a key for there would be no door
With open mind, they travel blind, to search and to explore
A life of grand delusions, this world has seen before.

The Púca's prayer

What sins has man that will not heal in time?
Whose crimes committed not against the state
Would tempt with wand'ring thoughts the curse of fate
To take from reason, trust, to leave him blind

What morals left as guides upon his wealth?
Where peasants rich in gifts but of their heart
Know joy; as purest life, as simplest art
And love as hate without the love of self

Whose life reflects the truth another knows
Will pierce both gods and demons of his soul
And in his bitter hatred age him old
To wither, wrinkling, naked in the snow 

If but that mind with body were to stay
And not be left to haunt these troubled streets
To dust returned from dust that came to meet
with life. In death, a solace waits within the clay.

The Flood

Incidents a-plenty at the weekend, some good, some over-shadowing the good with a pungent whiff of shittiness that had me longing for the far side of the globe, for all its ills. Although there exists a lingering temptation to rant about them, there's little to no point in so doing, so I'll stick the matter under the nearest rug and jump on it for a while until it levels out. The only one I deem relevant here is the flood, clearly the wrath of the big fella for my dismissing the Noahic warnings posted in the scriptures, though in my defence I couldn't possibly have known the event would be localised to my apartment, it all sounded a bit more apocalyptic than that. Allowances have to be made for memory loss, but on no occasion can I recall reading or hearing 'And the Lord sayeth onto them, beware thine washing machine pipe, for it is liable to go kaput.' Note to self: study the bible in more depth in future.

'No major damage,' he says, with a quick check of limbs and vital organs to ensure the beat goes on. The notebook he's been recording random life events/poetry/prose and varying ramblings grows eyebrows and scowls at him, upset by his distancing it from his self. 'It's a self-defence mechanism,' he assures it, haphazardly, 'it's not you it's me.' Luckily for him this line has a tendency to work on inanimate objects. Unluckily for him, he can't quite manage to convince himself he isn't utterly heart-broken at the sodden mess that's been his world for the past cúpla bhliain. Scorning himself for having knocked it on to the floor while sleeping the night before the incident, he shakes his head & quickly reminds himself that he can't be held accountable for his place being a big bag of shite.

The long, short, and otherwise of it is that he's decided to transcribe the events in the book to here, for some sort of safe keeping I suppose, though how safe or otherwise is debatable.'Bollocks to it,' he thinks, incapable of concern and generally apathetic. Thinking haphazardly about the use of the third person, he trails off in random tangental fashion towards a situation where the third person was again thirdly personnified within itself, scratches his skull and concludes that the matter would be a case of speaking in the sixth person, which is just daft. 'We need to get out more,' he says to the other five, 'or less maybe.'   

Tea Ching

At this stage I've read a fair few blogs supposedly about teaching in Korea that actually become some class of crass psycho-analysis of Korean custom; the westerner abroad, complete with bum-bag, camera & little to no interest in what they're actually doing, teaching kids. Actually in all the blogs I've read I haven't read one that's dealt with the teaching side of things. They tend to spend their time discussing means of furrowing through the Korean landscape in search of other escapees from the western world in a bizarre ritual of 'ifyou'rereadingthisyoumustactuallygiveashitaboutmypaltryexistenceandthereforewanttoknowwhatIhadforbreakfastity.

For the large part I've found it's sycophantic happy clappers who hunt down western bars at night and McDonald's by day to keep themselves accustomed to their xenophobic leanings. Convinced that their spreading of the language of globalisation is a positive influence on the culture, they paste themselves to the bars and talk patriotism with the troops. Generalising I know but I can merely go with what I've found so far. perhaps somewhere lurking in the shadows of google's search results there's a decent blogger, and my ignorance or lack of time hasn't been trawling as well as it may.

That's all nonsensical gibberish, irrelevant and mostly just a bitter diatribe about bloggery. What's that sound? It's eerie... Ah wait, I've read about this, it's the warning pitch the brain makes before the vortex of self-parody begins and self slips into the assurance of its own pointed contributions to the virtual realm. Somebody call an ambulance. Actually wait, don't bother, I don't have health insurance and my monies are concerned mainly with food and tea 'til the first payday. I'll be sound, sure once ya survive a touch of the heart the invincibility factor can pretty much get ya through anything but a nuclear holocaust...(note to the dear leader; behave yourself, good lad...)

Getting back on topic, well maybe not back, but getting started on topic; I don't have health insurance. The American girl I work with was kind enough to inform me of such the first day we worked togther. I'll avoid naming her on the basis of the school adding it up and my losing a job, which I doubt likely to happen but at the same time isn't a button I wish to press. The contract I signed stated that half the health insurance would be paid by the school. The flip-side of this is that the contract was in English, and any contract that isn't in Korean over here isn't legally binding. This is something worth noting, while like most other foreigners coming here, you sign your life over to a Hagwon for the year. On the upside, if you hate it and decide to skip the country, there's nothing that can be done about it. Keep that in mind.

The school itself is a fairly chaotic affair. Classes from Monday/Wednesday and Friday starting at half 2 in the afternoon and finishing up at half 9. Tuesday and Thursday start at half 3 and finish at half 9. Work every second saturday til half 12 and that be that. 10 days off, 5 you get to pick, 5 that are picked for you by the school. It's not a lot really, spend your days preparing for school and your evenings eating or drinking and often both before hitting the sack. Suffering from soft-as-shite syndrome doesn't really aid my progress as a teacher here. There's no way at 9 in the evening that I'm gonna try and make kids who have been schooling since 8am try to learn stuff, when the alternative is to let them get homework done that otherwise they'll only be starting into around 11 and finishing sometime around the same time as they're due to start the whole process again. They're dead on their feet. It also gives me a chance to get the mountains of essays corrected. Win win.

Corporal punishment is used as an acceptable means of discipline here. My mind has taken the notion upon itself that If I'm ever a witness to it I'll take the specially crafted beating stick off the bucko and turn the tide around. I donno', the kids seem ok with it, but I'm not. I guess they've never known anything else. Keep an eye out for the headline 'Man deported for beating school director to death with his own paddle'. Free the Lurgan one! The weird thing is that all they need is an English Language Certificate to become a director of a hagwon, which is evidently not that difficult to get and doesn't require a complete fluency in the language to run a language school. Bizarre.

Look the main point here is to be careful where you apply for work. Ask questions, demand answers. They'll shaft you about but until you find out were you're at, you'll never know where you're going. There are good schools here too so I hear, try and find them. Ask for the name of the school and their website. Find teachers who were there before you. Ask about your apartment size and never send anything away that you haven't photocopied at least a few thousand times. Get a copy of the contract to sign in Korean and if it feels dodgy it probably is. Trust your gut, it'll lead you where you need to go.

I'm gonna' hit the leaba via the kettle.

Almost

             Almost
Was here and was one person
and was not.
Knew hunger and it's excess
and was too full for words.
Had he a hand in himself?
He had two that were not his;
With one he would build
With the other he would tear down.
Over his shoulder
he saw fear, on the horizon
it's likeness. A woman paused
for him on her way
nowhere and together they
made in the great darkness the
small fire that is life's decoy. - RS. Thomas

There was something quite surreal about reciting these words on the walls over-looking Suwon as the sun rose. I say surreal, but in truth it was entirely real, a beautiful way to appreciate life. Lost to the thoughts of the self, and in good company, save the weird bugs intent on feeding their blood lust. Although a city of 2 million plus, we climbed a mountain last night that made the hustle disappear, chilled out at a confucian temple/ look-out post and drank some beer and spoke about life, really refreshingly honest activity to be at in a world where honesty seems to require a trust disclaimer. Fair enough, trust issues with Rob have never been a problem, but it was interesting to hear him say that last night was the first time in a year of being here that he'd actually felt at home in Korea. In which case I feel privileged that it's taken me just a week to find a similar experience.

My mind was blown by the views, the architecture, the statues, and the aura of legacy that surrounded us. Maybe it's my naivety; new sights/sounds/textures, or maybe there really is something in this orientalism lark that I've been mulling over ever since reaching the conclusion that the occidental search for the external deity was a facile jaunt. Joseph Campbell spoke about it better than I ever could I suppose, it just kinda creeps me out. In the west folk are deliberately kept in a state of amusement so as not to dwell on thoughts of consciousness and the inner workings of the mind. Societal norms are obsessed with occupying time, and the consensus is that too much thinking time is a bad thing. Perhaps. Or perhaps it's the realisations these thoughts prompt that pose the true danger to an individual's mental stability; the ills of the species & of the self.

I've always been comfortable with the knowledge that I know nothing. For some reason my mind recalls a chat I had with a lad in Ireland about how as soon as labels are introduced, with them come limitations. It was about a poem I'd written and refused to title on the grounds of the title forming preconceptions within its audience.  About how the first sentient creature was probably the happiest as there were no external expectations. It struck me how upset he got at my argument that negated the need for labels, that strove for a pure understanding coming from an appreciation of understanding as construct. His brain was wired differently to mine, fair enough, to each their own & all that, I don't plan on creating another's reality, I've plenty enough to be going on with tending my own garden.

I've come to thinking that true happiness exists in negating other's expectations and establishing one's own truth. Weird and all as it probably seems, or maybe even really base level common sense. It just amazes me how many people spend their entire lives worrying what another thinks they should be; whether through brand advertising, peer pressure or otherwise. It's a sad aspect of life, though predominant, in what I've found in western culture, and indeed here, particularly in terms of vanity.

It's only been a week or so, but the journey has begun well. Heading out now soon to a pub that apparently houses the western contingent in this place. A walking contradiction I suppose, but if I spoke the language I'd be as happy socialising with the Koreans, probably happier. Feck knows how it's gonna go but I'm sure there are some really cool people here waiting to be met. Approached with the right attitude, life tends to balance itself. Well almost..

Liver Picket and the Philosopher's Sweat

Soju.

Ugh. Word familiar to Korean folk, like yeppeuda but only in familiarity, the two don't mix, but give the impression of doing so. Exercise caution. Raging hangover. The feeling you get when your liver humanises and decides to picket your brain for the injustices delivered from the upper reaches of your self. With posters mounted on pointy sticks. Expect to walk leaning to one side to avoid excess strain on battered body for at least the first half hour on waking. Preferably around your room, with the air conditioning on. Don't go outside without inventing a travel shower. A vat of water would probably do but can lead to further discomfort when dumping it over yourself to cool off. Wet clothes are never nice, be that the chronic humidity induced sweaty kind or the water dumpage breed. 

Picture the scene; pasty white Irish man lands in Korea, (or is that pastey, probably pastey, definitely not a cornish delicacy), I'd google it to find out but my laziness knows no bounds, anyway I digress. Pastey white Irish man lands in Korea, from a land of beautiful fresh country air and arrives in Suwon, pretty much a district of Seoul but very much a city in its own right. Humidity something along the lines of 70-80%. Although not prone to swearing, given his staunch Catholic upbringing <insertsarcasmhere>, he's tempted to say something akin to 'Sweet Suffering fucksticks, how in the blue bejaysus can anyone live in this climate, besides the plethora of locusts that seem to be everywhere, giving a sort of other worldly feel soundtrack to life as a Korean'. In truth he stops at the climate part, and later discovers the locusts (cicadas) haunting the trees, which are plentiful, but ill-equipped to deal with the humidity of the Korean summer. I'm sure they try, bless them, but sometimes trying just isn't good enough. He gets in, apartment isn't ready, spends the night in a hotel in Nuwon, bars everywhere, goes walkabout, gets lost, looks for station to meet people, thinks it walkable, realises it's about the same distance from Leitrim to Edinburgh and eventually decides a taxi might be a decent idea.

Soju. Blur. Good times, suitable introduction, roughity.

The women here are aesthetically beautiful, they're absolutely gorgeous. Walking down the street is a reason to get up in the morning. There are drawbacks. Lack of communication, they don't speaketh the English being up there. Seemingly they love foreigners though, happy days. Learn the language. Seemingly they're little craic too, but having been told that by an American girl that could be a jealousy issue. I've met women who were no craic who were also unattractive. Can't win 'em all y'know but one out of two is a decent enough average to work off. Anyway, there's little to no need for my being some class of a chauvinist. It's unlike me. Learn the language. Counting almost mastered. Talking not so much. Agassi yeppeuda yeoja. Possible grammar issues, will try it out though, language is mostly a contextual issue, that's my story & I'm sticking to it. Vanity is another issue, expect to randomly bump into folk fixing themselves up in any available mirror. Whilst this is common in western countries, normally there's a degree of subtlety involved.

There's a very high rate of suicide here, so I'm told and am inclined to believe to be the case. Between pressures of academic expectation and pressures to be drop dead gorgeous, ahem, life must be somewhat difficult. They go to school at 8am, and by the time they've left school, done their 2 hours of piano lesson and then come to the private schools for the English learning debacle, they get home around 11, launch into their homework and get set for the following 8am. Life skills aren't treated as something of importance, eating out is the norm and ovens are a non-entity. Expect to hear those who can speak English insert the term 'micro-wave' as a prefix to the word 'oven'. Gas hobs are present, though whether commonplace or not is anyone's guess.

They love boozing. Drinking should be a national sport. Pubs don't close until the last Korean has had their fill and fecked off to spend the night passed out on the footpath/alleyway/road. Although that's a gross generalisation, it is commonplace to see men in thousand dollar suits sleeping in the streets. Below is a picture of a puppy as used to illustrate said Korean post-soju. Obviously remove the comfortable bed and replace it with a piss stained alleyway but I'm sure your imagination is strong enough to get the general idea. Here's where I apologise for copyright infringement but having google imaged drunk koreans in the street it was what first struck me as an accurate depiction. Note the empty soju bottle under its paw, these are commonly found scattered around said people when you walk past or across them.

There are other stories from the first week, but worryingly I get the feeling that they'll become a regular theme and can be referred back to at a later date. Ah yeah, corporal punishment & intolerance of weakness; definitely another day's scripture.

Peace be with yiz, tóg bog é.