MY LAGAN LOVE
Snow falls
in the outside world
flake after flake
clinging for dear life
to the window pane
as it softly
erases our gazes
stuck
upon the glass
the fire
roaring behind us
with all the gusto
of past Christmases
two worlds
existing at once
separated only
by the mind
of the little boy
for whom
it was
always forever
the first time
as if the world
was being
created for him
just that second
as if God had said:
“Look…I have this
idea? ”
sketching it quickly
in white
asking: “Well, …
what do ya think? ”
And then impatiently
rubbing it out
and then
drawing it again
in snow & always
his father’s voice
singing somewhere
in the darkness
MY LAGAN LOVE.
******
C R A Z Y   M A N   M I C H A E L
Unknown woman
lost in the darkness
of an enormous
fireplace
black hair
framing a death
pale face
her dark dress
making her almost
invisible
a singing
floating head
hands
white doves
taking flight in gesture
almost mythical
your voice
tells the tale
of CRAZY MAN MICHAEL
each breath
almost magical
as your voice
shapes his fate
& he kills his own true love
by mistake.
“For his true love
is flown
into every flower grown
& he must be keeper of the garden, ”
Unknown woman
singing in the darkness
always your voice
the tears in my eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are two beautiful songs that have stayed with me all through my life…I wouldn’t be without them.
MY LAGAN LOVE would have been first heard on the radio program SUNDAY MISCELENY again and again as an ancient air or sung by man or woman or transformed by Horslips into an electric guitar fantasia.
I loved all versions.
The favorite one being my Dad going out to get coal one childhood Chrsitmas singing a wordless version to himself…his voice hanging in the darkness as bright as any star.
A thing of beauty and my joy for ever.
CRAZY MAN MICHAEL seems like an eternally old ballad dragged back into the future but was actually written by Richard Thompson and sung by the incomparable Sandy Denny. I went to the Grapevine Arts Centre for a folk session and as I entered the door framed in this magnificent fireplace this vision sang this version from her darkness. It was as if LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI had come alive and could sing me to death with her song.
I was stunned and in love with the song ever since!