Suzanne Nixon

fen again wakes

a hymn to jim

 
for it’s sogging about
in the bog you go
and who was to know
that so much of the stuff
that lay buried below
was treasure

and didn’t you take a dive right on in
through the prickles of gorse
to the tickles, of course;
buried about and within
 
oh fiddle-dee-dedalus
not one afraidalus
just a bit crazaelus
building a mazealus
all from the treasure within within
all from the treasure within 

from the mire and the muck,
from the swamp of myth’s history;
of Moll’s glorious fuck
and Leopold’s pisstory
all of it gristory
for the milling  of tale 

so he churned and he spaded
the fen of his mind;
going deeper and deeper
(down to the mythic; )
way beyond ken
bringing the depths
up to surface
again 

in chunks and small fragments
and snatches and singings
in riddles and rhymey
a sliding and slimey
usage of timey
following fen fire;
logic begrimied;
things becoming quite iffy
on Dublin's fair Liffey   

oh fiddle-dee-dedalus
not one afraidalus
just a bit crazaelus
building a mazealus
all from the treasure within within
all from the treasure within 

and all of this pitching
about in the dark
near sighted
blind sighted
(oh, bring me a quark) 

our jimmie did write it
the jabber within ‘im
the thoughts and the feelings
all stirring about
our jimmie,  I bless him,
he wrote it all out 

and reading today
in all of this wand’ring
 
through the maze of his mind
through the maze of our history
in the day of some lives
through the mind’s awesome mystery
and into the night 

I reel almost dizzily
so stirred by the reading;
so moved my soul quakes 

and lo and behold,
gleeful rejoicing,
my fen again wakes 

oh fiddle-dee-dedalus
not one afraidalus
just a bit crazaelus
building a mazealus
all from the treasure within within
all from the treasure within