I play Irish whistle. Or, better, I play at Irish whistle. Even better still, it plays at me. Celtic music has changed my life forever. If there is a music that can have me utterly spellbound in seconds and quickly fumbling for the radio volume control, it’s that ancient, mystical but oh so immediate music of the Celts. The following short poem was inspired by a very simple little Irish whistle tune. But first a message from your sponsor…

I’m the first to admit that much of my poetry is so stream of consciousness as to seem like utter gibberish and an exercise in right brain futility. Poetry is, to me, like flushing out the radiator in my truck. Sometimes the result is at first messy, even unseemly, but hopefully the result is a better functioning. Things run better. Smoother. Life seems cleaner, cooler somehow. This is all I can hope for in my poetic endeavors, such as they are. I can only pray that, somewhere in the cascade of apparent lexical misfits, you find something that can flush your soul and give space for newness…and perhaps a little wonder.

come to me, little strains of pipe, sullen and sad, soft and sallow

fill up my ears with the wetted, be-dewed hillsides of morning’s music.

sift me like wheat till there remains nothing but myself,

chuckling in time to tunes both ancient and strange, friend

to brother and breast, bordered ‘round with chimes and chant

thumping drum and hymning hums awhirl and awake

to find my North from earlier ventures.

stop.

stop but once,

stop but once, but twice and find me once more

awake and alive to your dervishing tease,

your dancing, light and unfettered.

full round now, take my arm and turn

now to swing, now to step, to step and dance

till we are spent,

and fall down, complete.