Hi Bunny, yes - depending on your browser either 'reply' or 'reply to all'
will automatically open a window with 'the works' email address in the 'to'
window and something like 're: thesubject' in your subject window. Then the
text of the poem yr commenting on will be in the main window and you can
type comments etc.

Sorry no crit till tomorrow from me 'cos it's way past my bedtime. I've
been staying up late but have finally discovered that, no matter how much I
listen to the news, I can't change it.

Sheesh, John

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bunny Goodjohn" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 19 September 2001 04:18
Subject: sub: On route to Ellis Island


Hi all,

Am I replying to the right address for subs and crits?  I hope so. If I'm
not, someone put me right off list. To crit, do you just take a subbed poem
and then crit on the same list, ie the same email address?

Anyway:

On route to Ellis Island

>From the deck of the Irish Mist
Seamus Cuchulain squints through
the November sun at the stevedores
on Manhattan's dock and weighs
the air, littered with broken
dialects--German, Italian and shards
of sweet Irish--music to his frozen ears.
He is stunned by the towering skyline
and strokes the plastic cover of his
communion bible, a present from
Mrs. Riordan. He thinks of home;
Ma's 'two-up-two down'
on Court Street.

He watches a tug boat ferry the wealthy
to the quay, creaking through ice-riven
water, whose fissures are obscured by fresh
falling snow; the water's surface gleams
like boiling milk in a pan. Two towering
Percherons strain harnessed, impatient to haul
leather luggage to rich patrons
in Manhattan. Blue-capped porters rub
frozen hands in anticipation
of bright dollar gifts.

He fingers the quarters in his pocket-
a going away gift from the altar boys
at Our Lady in Ascentia-as the steamer
bound for Ellis Island approaches the Mist.
Seamus turns slow three-sixty and breathes
the Statue of Liberty, white and firm on Bedloe's Island,
the quiet shores of Brooklyn,
the brooding ballast of Ellis Island.
Closing his eyes, he pictures Donegal:
heavy with winter, churches and priests,
and his brother on a kerb, chewing hungry
bread and jam, thin knees jutting
through threadbare trousers.

1st Draft 18th September 2001


Bunny
"Sometimes a poem about a fish is just that - a poem about a fish."



Bunny
"Sometimes a poem about a fish is just that - a poem about a fish."