Cloud-Bridge, Near Inch

Headed down to Wexford again to do some more book sorting and packing. They've opened a new stretch of motorway between Arklow and Gorey, with some dramatic views, especially when the afternoon sky is putting on a lightshow, Gothic cloud-buttresses arching across the blue. I had Santana on, blasting LEAVE YOUR LIGHTS ON. Perfect! I love drives like this.

I took some other shots too, such as THESE PYLONS and these DISTANT WINDMILLS on a sandbar off the Arklow coast.

The poem below, from my second collection, THE SKY ROAD, describes a similar journey on the Dublin-Wexford road, though it is on an earlier stretch, and the music (as given in the title) is Louis Armstrong.

Tiger Rag On The N11

He starts into it as I round
through The Glen of The Downs,

his bugle shining up that steep straight hill
so beautiful to come down, freewheeling by bicycle.

Two others, pine-crested, arching their backs --
hackles raised, head-to-head cats --

I?m looking to slip clear between,
till the new road lashes to the right and I'm in

pylon country, Thomas's dancing girls of the future
antique now as old candle holders,

delicately arranging their way
across rain-dabbed fields, grey-green, green-grey,

out-dated as those shiny new windmills on their Arklow sandbar,
ghost notches on the horizon's ruler;

and my skin prickles as Satch blows another joyous blast,
making it last.


When I arrived I got to work, though I couldn't resist taking a peek at the sky now and then. As it began to get dark I was rewarded with this magnificent CARBON FOOTPRINT (more like a slipper really).