Seosamh Ó Fathaigh was known in Dublin’s Literary Circle in the 196O’s as ‘an File.’ At an early age, Seosamh was advised by a Jesuit Priest to ‘write, write and write!’ He moved to the West of Ireland in 1988. Seosamh is published in English and Irish. This year he celebrated his 8Oth birthday with his wife Mary, and also Éinde, Rónán, Kim, and Emma.
Colours
Blue for sky and sea,
Red for blood to be more humanly
Integrated.
Green for growth,
To identify
The source of negativity.
The journey from white,
Neutral naivety
To cloud sourced
Myopic sight.
Through integration
by the rainbow route
Mapped by a colour-blind God.
Creator of a multi skin
Toned people
A kindred integrated creation
Free to be become more.
Exploitation
Culture to Cain, the importance of label
In expressing social status.
Economic power, its Everest, from the steppingstone
It’s foundation, the rock of exploitation.
It’s superiority, its status,
Who pays for the products on the table?
It’s resources from third world locations.
Mixed by and through manipulation,
Political in essence
The priesthood of power,
Political domination,
Economic exploitation,
Social and Cultural
Marginalisation.
Our menus,
From first world T.V. stations
Emphasis on ‘having.’
Children forever grieving,
Totalitarian values at the
Crucifix of consumption.
The two thieves of much
And more, on either side-
Twin towers of greed.
But resurrection is guaranteed-
The first of the Nazarenes’
Abel, in our era.
Remember apartheid,
Our contemporary Roman Era.
That fella of the sixties,
Nelson Mandela.
Romero in the eighties,
Ignacio Ella Curia in the nineties,
The new Holy Land Cuscatlán,
Meaning, ‘land of Rivers and Jewels’
El Salvador, our Saviour.
GORTA
(Reflection on a work by James Power).
In a statue
I met, the plight of finite humanity
Sculpted, bronzed, eyes deep set,
In acceptance of reality.
No question, no apportion of blame
On humanity for this upset
But mettled eyes, to the task aflame.
Limited understanding,
Of Gorta’s outcome,
Banishment, disharmony,
Death was as his cross.
The inherent dignity of man,
God given and yet though maligned
Resilient, strong,
The face of every foeman,
In a statue,
I met!
The Galway Review 