From Cork With Love - by Paul O'Mahony

You hear Eavan Boland reading her poem "Quarantine" - plus Paul O'Mahony reading it twice. Thursday at about 6pm.  Quarantine In the worst hour of the worst season        of the worst year of a whole people    a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.    He was walking—they were both walking—north. She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.         He lifted her and put her on his...

You hear Auden read his poem twice.  Paul O'Mahony reads it 1.3 times (including a few slips of his tongue. IN MEMORY OF W B YEATS  "He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. O all the instruments agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illn...

You hear poet Mary Oliver reading her poem “The Journey”.  Paul O’Mahony reads the poem twice for #napodpomo. 

You hear the poet, William Carlos Williams reciting his most famous poem,  “The red wheelbarrow so much depends upon a red wheel  barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens” ____________ You also hear Paul O’Mahony try unsuccessfully to recite the poem from memory. Paul recovers and reads the poem three times.

You hear John Masefield reading his poem  “Sea Fever I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear...

You hear Robert Frost reading his poem “Stopping by Woods on a snowy evening Whose woods these are I think I know.    His house is in the village though;    He will not see me stopping here    To watch his woods fill up with snow.    My little horse must think it queer    To stop without a farmhouse near    Between the woods and frozen lake    The darkest evening of the year.    He gives his harne...

By Phillip Larkin  Spoken by the poet. Spoken by Paul O’Mahony (3 times)  “THIS BE THE VERSE They fuck you up, your mum and dad.        They may not mean to, but they do.    They fill you with the faults they had     And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn     By fools in old-style hats and coats,    Who half the time were soppy-stern     And half at one another’s t...

You hear Seamus Heaney reading his poem "Digging" three times.  You hear Paul O'Mahony reading the poem twice.  Digging Between my finger and my thumb    The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound    When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:    My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds    Bends low, comes up twenty years away    S...

You hear a recording of Mary Oliver reading her poem Wild Geese. You hear Paul O’Mahony reading her poem, twice. This is the poem:  “ Wild geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile th...

You hear a recording of  W B Yeats reading his most popular poem. You hear Paul O’Mahony reading the poem twice. “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the v...

This was recorded during the last hour of the 31st day of October 2025.  This is my contribution to today’s 29, 30, and 31 of #octaver25

Apology:  the prompt for day 26 was “what are the elements of a good lullaby?” I’ve deviated off course.   This is my contribution to #octaver25 Days 24 & 26

Recorded on Friday 31st of October 2025.  This is my contribution to #octaver25 Days 23, 25, 27, and 28 

This was recorded on the early evening of Thursday 30th of October 2025. It includes a little bit of summer holiday Music for #Octaver25. Takes me back to 1963

This was recorded on the afternoon of Thursday 30th of October 2025.  It’s my contribution to #octaver25  You hear “ hard day’s night” & “ the lake Isle of Innisfree”.

This was recorded on the afternoon of Thursday 30th of October 2025, a very wet day in Cork. 

Recorded on the afternoon of Thursday, the 30th of October 2025.  My contribution to  #octaver25 Day 20

This was recorded after midnight on Wednesday 29th of October 2025

Recorded just before midnight on Tuesday 28th of October 2025

Recognise the group?  Where they performed on 1st May 1978? Who was with me at the concert?  #Octaver25 - my contribution 

This was recorded on the evening of Thursday 23rd of October 2025. My contribution to #octaver25