The Blackstock Children

By Denis Stokes

Another poem collection from Denis Stokes, a poet that surprises at every turn.

The poems involve an engagement between Canada and Ireland/England/Scotland/Wales. 

Part One involves family background, first experiences.

Part Two is a meditation on child poverty through the fictionalized imagining of the writing of the Christmas Carol. It is a protest poem about the lack of effort directed towards Campaign 2000, addressed to Dickens's son (and us, the inheritors of a social vision...alas).

Part Three involves the loss of the poet's brother-in-law and good friend, Henry Crealey.

Part Four goes deeper into present relationships and spiritual explorations.

Enjoy, reflect, and spread the word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scarlet Leaf Publishing House
• Release date: Dec 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201110246

Book preview

The Blackstock Children

Poems by

Denis Stokes

Scarlet Leaf

2021

© 2021 by DENIS STOKES

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, with the exception of a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Toronto, Canada

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Cover credits:

Rosses Point, Co. Sligo Waiting on the Shore, statue by Niall Bruton

Loop Head Lighthouse, Co. Clare photographs by Mary Stokes

Editing, design, text and layout by Scott Murdoch with Lara Stokes

Acknowledgements

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Some of these poems have appeared, often in different forms, in the following:

Dublin in the Sunlight (chapbook, Albernum Press); Peace Comes Dropping Slow (chapbook, Albernum Press); The Star Called Henry (chapbook, Albernum Press); Trees of Kilbroney (Light 2000); Leaping Clear; CVII. The title poem also appears in the collection, Tunnel Jumping.

THE BLACKSTOCK CHILDREN

we travelled on

to doubt and speculation

our birthright and our proper portion

-Derek Mahon

For Lara, Denny, Rose-Erin and Meg, in awe and   gratitude.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

I Dublin in the Sunlight

Harp Bell

Hills

Twenty Years After Hearing Mrs. O’Casey,

Apple Years

Ballyfermot

Dublin in the Sunlight

Beeton, 1987

At Whitehead

Tom-eh-toes Tom-ah-toes

II The Star Called Henry

The Star Called Henry

Sparrow’s Wall

This is My Brother

Now Wait ’Til I Tell You

Clearings

Month’s Mind

The Batchelor Details

Lake Trinities

Nipissing

Derg

The Magic Ticket

Traces

Ballad of Journeys

Bushmills Stream

Waking

Snaps

In the Heart’s Chambers the Changes Echo

III The Dickens Bridge

IV The Blackstock Children

Snowdon

Colmcille

To St. Kevin

The Blackstock Children

January Man

An bord ag an doras

Rostrevor Elegy (Douglas Fir)

Notes Towards a Pibroch

In Tranquility

Benedictions

Sheep in Skies

Lines Composed...

Notes...

I Dublin in the Sunlight

Harp Bell

For Joan Ranger

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Bard’s beacon, its strings

silent as stilled ribs, holding

woodbone shapes of a dog’s ear.

Its shining convolutions

of a mirror’s widening eye,

the bell catches the clean witness

of my window’s cedar, cloud,

and gives this room a gold

centre and a glow.

Its round sweep allows no

sides, no taking... only brass hips–

a woman’s generous skirt

here, there. Only.

Poteen bottle. God’s cruet-

it waits like an old call to prayer,

leaves like a perfume a lover leaves behind.

In its emptiness, the ball hangs

chained, a tunnel’s little sun

encased in dark silence

until I lift it, then hear:

its seed poking sound against its rim

like a small flower at a monk’s shovel.

Hills

Timidly, we wandered hills

over gravel lonans, bearded green

or on lost paths leading farmers

to cattle they once couldn’t reach

and came to crossroads. We passed

the schoolyard where that bitch

antiquity beat the children

once too often because the land

had little use, only peat for turf

fires. The heather, the sponge soft fog

and rushes shot upwards, faded

fireworks, flames, pools, a land

of undulations. We passed the spinster

on her bicycle. Our dog frightened her,

probed with its toe a slug stretching

on an asphalt rack of sunlight until